Disney says Kimmel will return to the air Tuesday, six days after suspension

By Dawn Chmielewski, David Shepardson and Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Disney said on Monday it would return comedian Jimmy Kimmel to late-night television on Tuesday, six days after his show was threatened with a regulatory probe and suspended over comments he made about conservative activist Charlie Kirk's assassination.

Disney's move to restore the "Jimmy Kimmel Live" show to the lineup of its ABC network represented the highest-profile challenge yet from a communications company to an escalating crackdown by U.S. President Donald Trump on his perceived media critics through litigation and warnings regulatory action.

The U-turn came after several prominent conservatives, including U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican who leads oversight of the Federal Communications Commission, joined Democrats in criticizing the head of the FCC for threatening retaliation against ABC.

Disney also faced pressure from consumers rallying against Kimmel's suspension by canceling their subscriptions to the Disney+ streaming subscription service.

Kimmel, who has frequently ridiculed Trump on his show, drew outrage from conservatives for saying that Trump's supporters were desperate to characterize Kirk's accused assassin "as anything other than one of them" and for trying to "score political points" from his murder.

The comments came in the opening monologue of Kimmel's Monday night broadcast, five days after Kirk, an influential Trump ally, author and radio-podcast host, was shot dead while speaking on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem.

'ILL-TIMED' COMMENTS

In the wake of threats of investigation, fines and broadcast license revocations from FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, and a boycott by many of ABC's affiliate stations, Disney said last Wednesday it was shutting down production of Kimmel's program indefinitely.

In announcing Kimmel's return on Tuesday, Disney said it had initially suspended the show "to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country."

Disney added that it found Kimmel's comments about Kirk "were ill-timed and thus insensitive," but the entertainment giant stopped short of an outright apology.

Disney CEO Bob Iger and Disney Entertainment Co-Chair Dana Walden spoke with Kimmel over the weekend and reached a decision on Monday to return Kimmel to the air, according to two people familiar with the matter. The decision was guided by what was in the entertainment company's best interest, rather than external pressure from station owners or the FCC, the sources said.

Another source at the company said Disney was feeling pressure from a campaign urging consumers to cancel their Disney+ subscriptions in protest. Google searches for "how to cancel Disney+" spiked to a 12-month high, according to Google Trends.

Kimmel is expected to address the issue when his show returns on Tuesday, according the sources. It was not known whether the late-night host planned to apologize or would be required to restrict or tone down any of his commentary.

A spokeswoman for Kimmel could not immediately be reached for comment.

Also left unclear was whether ABC's two biggest affiliate television groups, Nextstar Media Group, and Sinclair Inc, would eventually agree to resume carrying the show once it returned to the network.

There was no immediate comment from Nextstar which needs FCC approval for a $6.2 billion merger with Tegna. Sinclair said it would continue preempting Kimmel's time slot on Tuesday with news programming while conducting talks with ABC "as we evaluate the show's potential return."

BUSINESS VS. FREE SPEECH

Disney's reversal was likely based on business considerations rather than the desire to uphold free speech rights, as enshrined in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, said Susan Campbell, a media studies professor at the University of New Haven in Connecticut.

"Consumers were exercising their own First Amendment rights and ending their subscriptions to the company's streaming services," Campbell said.

In a message posted to X, Andrew Kolvet, a spokesperson for Kirk's conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, accused Disney and ABC of "caving" to public pressure, adding, "but it's their mistake to make."

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, the lone Democrat on the panel, praised Disney for "its courage in the face of clear government intimidation."

Trump, who has repeatedly pressured broadcasters to stop airing content that he has found objectionable, had celebrated the news of Kimmel's suspension last week and referred to it erroneously as an outright cancellation of the show.

In comments last week to reporters aboard Air Force One, the president raised the prospect of revoking FCC licenses as punishment for what he regarded as unfair treatment of him by broadcasters, saying, "It will be up to Brendan Carr."

Kimmel became the most prominent public figure embroiled in efforts by Trump to punish critics of Kirk in the aftermath of his slaying even as his assassination was universally condemned across the ideological spectrum as a barbaric act of political violence.

A 22-year-old technical school student from Utah has been charged with Kirk's murder. The precise motive for the killing remains unclear.

In response to Kimmel's comment about the case last Monday, Carr urged local broadcasters to stop airing the late-night show and suggested the commission could open an investigation leading to potential fines or broadcast license suspensions of local stations if a pattern of news distortion was found.

"This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney. We can do this the easy way or the hard way," Carr said in a podcast interview that aired on Wednesday. His remarks drew criticism from across the political spectrum.

Earlier on Monday, Carr insisted that Disney's decision to yank Kimmel from the air was a business one, not the result of government action. "Jimmy Kimmel is in the situation that he is in because of his ratings," Carr said at a forum before Kimmel was reinstated.

Disney shares, which fell in trading last week, closed down 1% on Monday.

(Reporting by Dawn Chmielewski and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles and David Shepardson in Washington; additional reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington, Danielle Broadway in Los Angeles and Andrew Hay in New Mexico; Editing by Richard Chang, Rosalba O'Brien and Shri Navaratnam)