Jimmy Kimmel figured his ABC late night show was toast during last month’s firestorm over his comments following conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s murder.
“I said to my wife: ‘That’s it. It’s over’,” Kimmel recalled Wednesday night at the Bloomberg Screentime media conference in Hollywood in a lengthy sit-down interview three weeks after the controversy.
The 57-year-old comedian has long felt his statements about the Kirk shooting were misconstrued. But he recognized his show was in deep trouble on Sept. 17 when his bosses benched him and two ABC affiliate station owners, Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group, initially refused to air the program.
Kimmel provided fresh details about his dealings with Walt Disney Co. brass, his emotional hiatus and the late night television business in the wake of rival CBS announcing it was canceling “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” next spring.
Kimmel declined to say whether he would extend his long ABC run when his contract is up in May, but he acknowledged an interest in producing other projects.
Kimmel’s future was in doubt last month after his comments and the political backlash spawned boisterous protests that shined a light on 1st Amendment freedoms, the role of the Federal Communications Commission and the challenges facing Disney as it looks for a new leader to replace Chief Executive Bob Iger next year.
The controversy began with his Sept. 15 monologue when Kimmel said Trump supporters “are 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.” Right-wing influencers howled; FCC Chairman Brendan Carr called Kimmel’s actions “the sickest conduct possible.”
The sentiment he was trying to convey “was intentionally, and I think maliciously, mischaracterized,” Kimmel said.
He didn’t sense the initial fallout was “a big problem,” rather a “distortion on the part of some of the right-wing media networks,” he said.
Kimmel had planned to clarify his remarks Sept. 17, but Disney executives feared the comedian was dug in and would only inflame the tense situation. That night, about an hour before showtime, Disney hit pause and released a statement saying the show had been pre-empted “indefinitely.”
He was off the air for four days.
“I can sometimes be aggressive. I can sometimes be unpleasant,” he said.
He recognized the show’s precarious position when Sinclair and Nexstar bailed. He recalled an episode from early in his career when he made a joke about boisterous Detroit basketball fans, saying “they’re gonna burn the city of Detroit down if the Pistons win,” so he hoped the Lakers would prevail.
The comment riled up the Motor City, prompting the local ABC affiliate to briefly shelve Kimmel’s show.
An ABC executive at the time told Kimmel the loss of the Detroit market could be catastrophic. That pales in comparison to the threatened loss of Nexstar and Sinclair, which own dozens of stations, including in such large markets as Seattle, St. Louis and Washington, D.C.
“The idea that I would not have …. 40 affiliates [stations] … I was like, ‘Well that’s it’,” Kimmel said.
But he said he “was not going to go along” with demands made by station broadcasters.
Sinclair, a right-leaning broadcaster, said in a statement it would not air Kimmel until he issued “a direct apology to the Kirk family” and “make a meaningful personal donation to the Kirk Family and Turning Point USA,” the right-wing group Kirk founded.
Both Sinclair and Nexstar resumed airing the show Sept. 26. ABC offered no concessions.
Kimmel complimented Disney’s Co-Chairman of Entertainment Dana Walden’s handling of the crisis, saying she was instrumental in helping him sort through his emotions.
“I ruined Dana’s weekend. It was just non stop phone calls all weekend,” Kimmel said, saying he doubted the situation would have turned out so well “if I hadn’t talked to Dana as much as I did, because it helped me think everything through, and it helped me just kind of understand where everyone was coming from.”
When asked who might become the next CEO of Disney, Kimmel said it would be “foolish” to answer that question.
“But I happen to love Dana Walden very much, and I think she’s done a great job,” Kimmel said.
Throughout the controversy, Walden and Iger were skewered by critics who asserted the company was caving to President Trump, who has made it clear that he’s no Kimmel fan. The Disney leaders were accused of “corporate capitulation.”
“What has happened over the last three weeks … was very unfair to my bosses at Disney,” Kimmel said. “It [was] insane, and I hope that we drew a really bold red line as Americans about what we will and will not accept.”
Kimmel returned Sept. 23 with an emotional monologue that championed the 1st Amendment.
Ratings soared.
The controversy — and CBS’ upcoming cancellation of Colbert — has focused new attention on the cultural clout of late night hosts, despite the industry’s falling ratings.
Millions of viewers now watch monologues and other late night gags the following day on YouTube, which means networks that produce the shows have lost valuable revenue because Google controls much of that advertising.
Networks acknowledge the late night block is challenged, but Kimmel said such shows still matter.
He scoffed at reports that cite unnamed sources suggesting Colbert’s show was on track to lose $40 million this year.
“If [CBS] lost $40 million, they would have canceled it already,” Kimmel said. “I know what the budgets for these shows are,” alluding to the ABC, CBS and NBC shows.
“If we’re losing so much money, none of us would be on,” he said. “That’s kind of all you need to know.”
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