FCC Chair Brendan Carr suggested that Jimmy Kimmel’s show might not be the last to shutter amid the Trump administration’s war on the media.
During a Thursday morning interview on CNBC, host Carl Quintanilla asked the communications chief whether he shared President Trump’s desire to see NBC take Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers off the air.
“Is the president’s view that they should be taken off the air shared by the FCC?” Quintanilla asked.
After saying that he didn’t speak for the president, Carr implied that there could be more media chaos to come.
“We’re in the midst of a massive shift in dynamics in the media ecosystem for lots of reasons, including the permission structure that President Trump’s election has provided,” he said.
“I would simply say we’re not done yet with seeing the consequences of that shift.”
Co-host David Faber then pressed him on what “we’re not done yet“ meant, asking “Will you only be pleased when none of these comedians have a show on broadcast television?”
“It’s not about any particular show or any particular person,” Carr said. “I just frankly expect that we’re gonna continue to see changes in the media ecosystem.”
That media ecosystem was thrown into disarray yesterday after Disney, ABC’s parent company, decided to suspend Kimmel’s show “indefinitely” after a Monday night monologue that enraged some conservatives.
That monologue featured Kimmel saying that “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
On Wednesday, Carr appeared on MAGA YouTuber Benny Johnson’s show and threatened to withdraw ABC’s broadcasting license over the comments.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr told Johnson. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Hours later, Nexstar, which owns ABC affiliate stations across the U.S., decided to pull Jimmy Kimmel Live! from its programs. Andrew Alford, the president of its broadcasting division, called Kimmel’s comments about Kirk’s suspected shooter “offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse.”
Onlookers were quick to point out that Nexstar is in the process of a $6.2 billion merger with another local broadcasting titan, Tegna, which will require FCC approval.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Disney was weighing a possible return for the show in the next several days.
Trump didn’t wait and see, however, prematurely celebrating the cancellation of Kimmel’s show on Truth Social.
“Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done. Kimmel has ZERO talent, and worse ratings than even Colbert, if that’s possible,” Trump wrote on Wednesday night.
“That leaves Jimmy and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!!”
Trump’s campaign against late-night TV hosts scored a major victory in July when CBS announced that it was cancelling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert once its current season ends.
CBS executives described that cancellation as “a purely financial decision.”
However, it came amid a merger between Paramount, CBS’s parent company, and Skydance—which, like the Nexstar-Tegna merger, required approval from Carr’s agency.
It also came days after Colbert criticized a settlement Paramount agreed to with Trump to resolve a lawsuit the president had filed about a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. Colbert called the $16 million payout “a big fat bribe.”
Carr has tried to dispel the narrative that Kimmel or Colbert were the victims of political retribution, arguing that Trump’s election had allowed the media market to “rationalize” and that broadcasters were standing up for their “local communities’ values.”
President Biden is right.Political satire is one of the oldest and most important forms of free speech.It challenges those in power while using humor to draw more people in to the discussion.That’s why people in influential positions have always targeted it for censorship.
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) May 2, 2022
Three years ago, Carr struck a noticeably different tone about political satire.
When X (then Twitter) suspended the conservative satire website The Babylon Bee, Carr wrote that political satire “challenges those in power while using humor to draw more people in to the discussion.”
“That’s why people in influential positions have always targeted it for censorship.”
The Daily Beast has contacted Meyers’ and Fallon’s representatives at NBC for comment.
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