AlterNet
National Review Senior Political Correspondent Jim Geraghty said Jimmy Kimmell is back, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
No fan of Kimmel’s humor, Geraghty quotes National Review writer Jeff Blehar who said the comedian can now enjoy a brief rise in viewership and then “fade back into the ratings obscurity he already currently occupies.”
Geraghty also said President Donald Trump “prematurely spiked the football when he jumped onto Truth Social” and gloated, “Great News for America: The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED. Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done.”
It was a “big, unsatisfying mess,” said Geraghty, but it was also “very predictable.”
“No one should be particularly surprised that ABC brought him back after some ‘thoughtful conversations,’ and we will likely see some halfhearted apology or expression of regret from Kimmel tonight,” Geraghty said, “… So, this means the First Amendment is intact, America is not a dictatorship, and Trump is not ruling over America’s television screens with an iron fist.”
But he blasted the “censorious implications of Federal Communications Chairman Brendan Carr,” who says the FCC “may ultimately be called to be a judge” on Kimmel’s comments, and he also hit his fellow conservatives cheering the threat.
“It has been fascinating to watch self-identified conservatives who spent decades celebrating the end of the ‘Fairness Doctrine’ since 1987 argue that we need a federal agency to intervene when enough conservatives think a television network has aired something that is unfair,” Geraghty said.
“And for every commenter who says, ‘Well, … what about what gets said on MSNBC?’ please, for the love of God, learn the difference between broadcast television and cable and what the FCC has the authority to regulate and what it doesn’t,” said Geraghty, who has had to tell panelists that the FCC doesn’t regulate cable news, and that broadcast television regulates themselves tremendously.
In 2018, Megyn Kelly was ousted from a three-year contract with NBC for saying blackface as a Halloween costume was “O.K., as long as you were dressing up as a character.” In 2001, ABC jettisoned Bill Maher for suggesting the 9-11 hijackers who died along with their victims were hardly “cowardly,” compared to the U.S. “lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That’s cowardly.”
Kimmel’s $16 million-per-year contract expires in May 2026, said Geraghty. In eight months, Kimmel stops being ABC’s problem.
Read the National Review post at this link.
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