Jimmy Kimmel vs. the FCC: Can Disney Escape This Mess?

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1:13This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, campaigns slow down, insights get buried, and opportunities get missed. That's why Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales. Using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. To learn more, check out Accenture.com slash Spotify. It is Thursday, September 18th. If you tuned into Jimmy Kimmel Live last night and were confused a little when you saw Steve Harvey and an old episode of Celebrity Family Feud, there was a big reason why.

2:00Kimmel is suspended indefinitely. The result of a pretty wild sequence of events yesterday at Disney. There's a lot of misinformation out there and a lot of political posturing. So I want to go through exactly what happened clearly from a business perspective, hopefully with less politics, if that's possible. In Monday's monologue, Kimmel made the following comment about the aftermath of the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. 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.

2:37Not a great comment from Kimmel. I could see how it will be interpreted as suggesting that the guy who allegedly killed Kirk was a MAGA supporter. But that's not what Kimmel actually said. Regardless, it lit up social media, lots of backlash, and Brendan Carr, the FCC chairman, you'll remember him from the whole Paramount Sale CBS News fight, he pounced. He went on a right-wing influencers podcast yesterday and basically threatened Disney, which owns ABC. This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney, Carr said. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel, or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.

3:18Inside Disney, the TV chief Dana Walden and her team were freaking out over that car comment, I'm told. Remember, they're already in the Trump crosshairs over the president's ABC News case, which they settled for$16 million. And Disney was getting complaints from their affiliate groups. One of those groups, Nextstar, said it was pulling Kimmel indefinitely. Nextar happens to be in the middle of a$6 billion acquisition of a rival station group, a deal that, yes, would require FCC approval. So Kimmel wanted to address the situation on his show last night, and he and the Disney execs went back and forth on a possible script for that monologue and what it would say.

3:57But what Kimmel wanted to do would only inflame the situation, Walden decided. And after what I'm told was a lengthy back and forth with Kimmel, She and CEO Bob Iger then pulled the show. They say it's a temporary suspension until they can figure out a way to bring Kimmel back. But Carr then went on Fox News to declare victory last night. Trump celebrated on social media. And Kimmel, for his part, has not commented as of this morning. Okay, so much going on there and many, many ramifications. So there's only one guy to bring on to discuss it all. Bill Carter has covered the late night TV wars for decades.

4:33Most of them at the New York Times, then CNN. And he has his own website now called Late Nighter. We're going to get into all of it. The sacking of Jimmy Kimmel, the FCC's role, the fear and capitulation to Trump in Hollywood right now. And is there a path back for Kimmel at Disney? From The Ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Bellany, and this is The Town.

4:57Okay, we are here with Bill Carter, late night television expert, longtime journalist in the space. Welcome, Bill. Great to be with you, Matt. Okay, quite a day yesterday. Like none other I can remember. Like none other you can remember. Okay, so what I want to do is I want to first explain the leverage that the FCC and the affiliates have over ABC in this situation. Obviously, the FCC licensed the broadcast networks and is supposed to ensure that they are being used in the public interest. Nothing in the rules, as far as I know, allows the FCC to punish speech it doesn't like. It's only there to say we are acting in the public interest if there is something that is above and beyond offensive, etc.

5:45If Kimmel got something wrong on the air, and that's debatable, you correct it and apologize and move on, I would think. But it's kind of, in my opinion, it's kind of ridiculous that we're now policing a comedy show. we know that content-based restrictions on speech are presumed unconstitutional under the First Amendment. That is what I learned in law school. And here it seems like a pretty interesting one if it is coming from the FCC, but the affiliates weighed in. So what do you think is the leverage point here? Well, the leverage point is obviously the control of the licenses, which has never been used this way as a bullying stick to make someone, you know, fire someone because the person who's head of that government who appointed this FCC commissioner doesn't like the performer.

6:35I mean, that's really what's behind this. Because if you look at what Kimmel said, it's just absurd to say, which Brendan Carr, the FCC commissioner said, was the sickest conduct possible. I mean, he made a reference sort of to what the suspect in the case, he did nothing to disparage Charlie Kirk in any way. He never said a bad word about him. And then he made a joke about Trump, which he's done every night. And by the way, Matt, that same exact joke was on The Daily Show that night. That's an obvious joke because Trump was asked about his emotional state after this murder of his friend. And he made a limp response and then talked about the ballroom, which is an obvious thing that a comic is going to make fun of.

7:16So there was nothing there. Listen, I disagree a little bit. I think it was a little bit of a misstep. Obviously, this is a hyper sensitive situation. These monologues are written and taped before they air. Lots of people saw this before it aired. And, you know, I agree with you that it was not what it turned into on right wing social media, which is, you know, saying that Kimmel was disparaging MAGA people and got it wrong and was saying that the shooter was a MAGA supporter. He didn't actually say that, but it was worded in a way that was probably not the most elegant way to word it. Again, Matt, if that's the best you can do, how is that worth this reaction?

8:00How, in God's name, is it worth this kind of reaction? Because they're also saying, you know, he ignored all the evidence that this guy was the shooter. That all happened the next day. This was taped on Monday. So he didn't have that information when they were doing this. This is a pretext. Also, it's a comedy show. It's not the nightly news. Exactly. This is a pretext, Matt. This is a pretext. This is a guy who was targeted by Donald Trump. He's been targeted by Donald Trump. And this FCC commissioner is completely enthralled to Trump. This is a guy who was going around with a lapel pin that was Trump's head before he was named to the FCC.

8:37So he is entirely an agent of the administration. Yeah, and he was openly celebrating. I mean, this was not something where, you know, he was, oh, unfortunately, we have to do this. He was sending around emojis to journalists, and he was sending around the meme from the office with everyone doing the pump-up thing. Exactly. He had no objective here except to accomplish what he was put in office to do, which is to get rid of critics of Donald Trump. The affiliates are—it's a very interesting situation. Yeah, what about the affiliates here? Well, you know, they have deals pending with the government, and that means they have to be careful with what they do, just like the same thing happened with the Colbert situation.

9:14and they want to have the right to expand their number of stations, right? And they need to change the law, frankly, for that to happen. Yeah, let's be clear about that because the rule, I believe, is that you can only own, what is it, 38%, 39 % of the television stations throughout the country. Disney owns about 10 stations. They're owned and operated stations in the big markets like New York, LA, Chicago. But most of the ABC stations are owned by these station groups around the country. And the rule under the FCC has been you cannot own more than 39 percent. But people believe that that rule is outdated.

9:52The Trump administration is said to be friendlier towards these mergers. The Internet has sort of blown up the whole reason for the rules. And this merger that is pending between Nexstar and Tenga would create the largest station group. It's a six billion dollar deal. And the government, the FCC, has to essentially change the rules to allow that to happen. So Nextstar has a significant incentive to please the administration right now. And lo and behold, they were apparently the first one to say, oh, no, no, no, we're taking him off the air. We're suspending this indefinitely. And they put out a statement saying that this was above and beyond conduct and they cannot stand for it, essentially mirroring what Brendan Carr was saying.

10:38And you can summarize all of that with one word, which is leverage. That gives the FCC enormous leverage with these stations. Sinclair wants to expand as well, and they jumped right in too. Sinclair's already a very conservative organization. Yeah, they want ABC to go further. They want a Charlie Kirk special produced by ABC News. They want donations to charities that support his causes. Exactly. So we could get into why this is extraordinary in terms of Charlie Kirk himself, because, you know, Charlie Kirk has people who criticize him pretty severely and he's being lionized tremendously. But that's beside the point.

11:14All of that's beside the point. This is a story about government doing something it has no business doing. It has no business doing this. We don't allow people to police speech in this country. We haven't until now. But this is what this is doing. They're basically coming out and saying, he's been a critic of the president. The president is unhappy. We're going to figure out a way to get rid of the scotch. And now we have leverage and now we're going to do it. That's what it looks like to me and to basically everybody. What about the argument? I listen, I agree with you there, but I just want to play devil's advocate a little bit and say, what about the argument that these are the public airwaves and for decades now they have been controlled in the late night space by comedians, be it Colbert, Kimmel, Seth Meyers, Fallon's a little more down the middle, but they've been controlled by comedians that use their time, their space specifically to attack Republicans and Donald Trump.

12:13And that the FCC is merely trying to even the playing field here. And by going after these people that have been so one sided in their comedy, they're doing the government's work. Do you remember when there was the fair speech clause that existed? You had to have both sides. Yeah, equal time. There used to be. I mean, there's a version of it in politics, but there used to be that you had to have equal time on the broadcast networks for political views. That's gone. And you know why it's gone? Because right-wing radio hosts were incredibly aggressive in trying to get rid of that. And now that argument is saying, well, they shouldn't have all these comics having one point of view.

12:53Well, they got rid of that whole notion. There's no way that you can say to a comic that you've hired to do this job. And by the way, you got to tell jokes about Democrats in equal number because they would they made jokes about Joe Biden. They talked about his age and how goofy he was all the time. Not with this kind of level of passion. I agree with you. They're very passionate about this. This is something that they care about a lot. Yeah, they go after Trump. These shows, Colbert and Kimmel in particular, go after Trump way more. And that happens to be their prevailing point of view. They are entitled to that point of view.

13:26We have a free country. It's free speech. If those companies felt they were not, that was not fair or whatever, they could have done something about it, but they didn't because they hired those guys to be artists. And that's what the artists do. They didn't step in and say, you have to do this or you have to do that. And I don't see any reason why that would bring the FCC in anyway. The FCC can't monitor shows and say, no, I'm sorry, that's too politically left. We have to. They want to do that. I think they want to do that. And I think we'll see that in other ways, especially if this leverage works for them.

14:01Yeah. Okay. So let's talk about Disney. What is Disney so afraid of here? Because if I'm Bob Iger and Dana Walden at Disney, I see where this goes and I'm gaming this out and people are canceling Disney plus because they're so upset with this. This is not going to be a one day story. No. So why did they make the decision to pull him when we know behind the scenes they were trying to figure out a statement that he would make on the air and how he would address it. He wanted to do one thing. They were not comfortable with what he wanted to do. So why do this? What are they so afraid of? Well, I think they're afraid of the economic fallout.

14:41It could be an enormous economic fallout for them. You mean the NFL acquisition? They just bought the NFL network assets. And yes, That is something that it's kind of arguable whether the FCC has to get involved in that. I think it probably will. But you're just saying they do not want to be a target. None of these media companies want to be a target right now, which is why they're all settling. I would argue that their settlements and Iger's in particular at the beginning of all this has laid the groundwork for these guys to get extra aggressive. It was sort of 100 percent predictable. And I think even Donald Trump supporters would say that he is kind of a bully when he wants something and they like that about him.

15:22But in this sense, if I'm Bob Iger and I agree to pay 16 million dollars to settle a pretty frivolous ABC News lawsuit, you got to know that when you give someone an inch and he's a bully, he's going to keep going. And this is not going to end. Everybody said it at the time. That's exactly what everybody said. And you have to know this guy. You have to know Trump. You have to know the way he functions. and he has total power now because his party, which you would think there have to be some people in the party who say, wait a minute, wait a minute, you can't infringe free speech that way. They are enthralled to him.

15:56They won't buck him up. Including Brendan Carr, by the way. Everyone's recirculating the old tweets from him talking about free speech and even Joe Biden knows this and you can't punish speech and yada, yada. It doesn't, nothing matters, doesn't matter. He said it in the context of comedy. He said that Joe Biden said, you know, these comedians have to be able to make fun of any. He said, yes, they do. That's what free speech is. And now it's different because it's Donald Trump. Everything is different because of Donald Trump. How many times have we said that over the last 10 years? So people have asked me, why doesn't Disney just keep airing Kimmel, but on their own stations and on Disney Plus and Hulu?

16:35Why did it have to be pull him indefinitely? Well, I think they were right up against the deadline of what they were going to do last night. Yeah. I think clearly that could be something they're talking about. I mean, I don't think they want to go down that road for all kinds of reasons. Well, Dana thought that his apology or lack of apology or response would have made the matter worse. And they don't want this mushrooming into World War III with the government. I think that's right. But that's the question about whether they go around them this way and say, well, we're going to use it on our stations, et cetera.

17:11The government will say they're licensed, too. Those stations are licensed. So, you know, that car basically said we can do it the easy way or the hard way. Right. Right. Which is as mob a statement as you could possibly have, probably. And he'll go after the ABC licenses and he won't win that either. That's another one he can't win. There's no way you can pull a license on this basis. It seems like a content-based restriction on free speech to me. I am not a telecommunications lawyer, but it seems to me that this would not last. But you know what? Do you want to get into litigation with the president?

17:46This is the entire thing that they settled for. And he will be in public assailing you every day. And he has his own media to back him up. Yeah. And it's Disney. And they know they're trying desperately to remain apolitical. and Iger wants so badly to go back to the 1990s and 2000s when you could be a brand that appealed to everybody and they have theme parks and they have movies that want to appeal to everybody and they don't want to be adversarial with the president because he will use it to drive a wedge through their customers. They'll suggest boycotts of their theme parks. Let's face it, they'll do that.

18:26So they are in a box, man. They are in a terrible, terrible box because let's say they decide to cancel Kimmel, right? Well, I think then the entire creative community is going to completely go up in arms about this. Well, last night, SAG and the Writers Guild both put out statements just ripping Disney for this. And that will happen. You know, and every comedian is going to go after them. And, you know, the artists that might make movies may go after them. It's a very tight situation they're in. And I have been thinking about a solution. I don't know what it would be except for Kimmel to come on and do something that sounds apologetic.

19:01And for them to say, if you still are against this, then it's obvious it's not about this issue because he's made his apology and you still won't accept it. I mean, Sinclair, by the way, has already said, it doesn't matter what he says, they're going to pull their stations off his show. So, I mean, that's the only thing I can see at this point, other than somebody in the company saying, we have to fight now. We gave in the last time. If we give in again, it'll never end. We have to fight now. And if Iger doesn't do that, do you think his legacy is tarnished? Big time. Don't forget, he's gotten a lot of journalism awards.

19:34He has. The ABC News building in New York is called the Robert A. Iger Building now. And you've got this guy who is not exactly standing up for his people's journalistic principles. Yes. And look, I've known Bob forever, right? And I have a lot of respect for Bob. And I think he has done, he has stood up another time. But this is the biggest challenge. It will tarnish his legacy big time. I mean, we don't know where this whole thing is going, Matt. Trump has now said he's going after the NBC guys. I mean, you know, if Saturday Night Live keeps making fun of him, he'll go after them. It's not going to end.

20:08Somebody has to put their foot down and fight, it seems like, or he'll roll over all of them. And it's easy for me to say, for you to say, anybody outside to say. Yeah, well, I said that in the whole Paramount situation, that it's easy for all these people in the media to wag their fingers at David Ellison and Sherry Redstone you don't have a eight billion dollar transaction that is contingent on the president's lackey giving it approval and you know by the way david ellison probably sending bob eiger a fruit basket today all the attention on cbs news has gone away that's your baby to handle yeah yeah but disney doesn't have a specific eight billion dollar deal they just have a general brand and government relations problem.

20:56Yes. So in essence, they could attempt to write it out. They could. I think the New York Times will. The New York Times got sued for$15 billion this week, and I think they will. That is much more than New York Times brand. They stand up for free speech. They have many, many lawyers. So I think they will. But will Disney? Disney, as you pointed out, their appeal is across a broad range, an incredibly broad range, sports and music and entertainment and theme parks, all of those things. So they would take an enormous economic hit. And the fallback for them is always make it go away, just de-escalate.

21:32And I don't think that's possible with these guys. Iger tried it and it led to this. Exactly, that's my point. I think somebody is going to have to stop or it's going to be everybody. He'll roll over everybody. I don't know if Iger will be the one to say, I got to fight now, I got to, we're going to take our company and do what we can and they can do certain things. I mean, they could do crazy stuff if they wanted. They could say to Nexstar and Sinclair, well, you know, you don't get Monday Night Football. Yeah, what leverage does Disney have here? That's what I'm thinking. That's their leverage.

22:04They have programming on ABC that is very valuable to these networks. Now, you know, the overriding economic thing here is if this were the heyday of late night and these shows were delivering 8 million viewers a night, maybe it's a different conversation with some of these station groups. But when you're delivering two, three million viewers a night, you have less leverage there. And maybe Celebrity Family Feud reruns do rate as much as Jimmy Kimmel Live. I haven't seen the ratings yet, but the money that ABC is making on Kimmel is less. It's not a Colbert situation. We have been told that Kimmel is profitable.

22:40He does a lot more for the network than just hosting this show. He did the Oscars. He does Millionaire. He does game shows. He is like the face of the brand. Exactly. But it's not the heyday. And Kimmel has been talking about retirement anyways for many years. So let's get to the Kimmel question. Yes. Obviously, this all happened because he did not want to apologize overtly and do something a little more earnest that the ABC people wanted him to. How do you see this playing out? Do you apologize if you're him? I want to correct you a little bit because the station people didn't know whether he was going to apologize or not.

23:18Right. Right. But what I'm talking about is the conversations within Disney. Dana Walden and Rob Mills, the head of Late Night, and they were all going back and forth during the day, is my understanding, and trying to figure out how to address this on the show. Kimmel wanted to address this on the show, and ultimately Disney decided not to do that. So what do you do? Is the trust there forever broken? Can this be resolved? involved unless they really want to be brave. It's going to be very hard. And Kimmel has to say something. He'd have to make some concession. I obviously has to make some concession.

23:54I personally think that's a little strange because it's not really a grotesque situation. Remember when Letterman made the comments about Sarah Palin's daughter? And then they were pretty egregious and he came on the air and really kind of abjectly apologized about it. Right. The FCC did not get involved in that. There was no, I've seen, it was just, hey, that was over the line. This is such a different case. I mean, it really is. Yeah. Kimmel probably wouldn't do anything differently. I mean, I disagree with him a little bit, but he will probably say, this is what I said, and I will have to stand by it.

24:27And I agree with you that he should have been realized, he should have realized, they're gunning for me, I gotta be careful. You know what I mean? That should have been in his head. That's the one thing I would say. He should have said, I'm gonna be very careful with this whole Kirk thing because they're using it as leverage against a lot of other companies. But, you know, Jimmy's also, I mean, how abject can he be? I mean, he can say, you know, I never meant this, I never meant that, I never meant this, and I believe in free speech or whatever. It's not going to work for those people. It's not going to work.

24:56No, there'll be something else. They have their microscope on him now, and it will be something else he does that they will come after him again, figure out another way.