Key Points
- A Sinclair executive said the company had a business obligation to pull episodes of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” last month.
- The executive, COO Robert Weisbord, denied the company influenced ABC to put the show on hiatus in mid-September.
- Some ABC affiliate owners disagreed with Sinclair and Nexstar’s decision to pull the show, according to sources.
A senior executive with Sinclair, Inc. said the television broadcaster’s decision to pull episodes of ABC’s late night talk show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” last month was rooted in its “fiduciary responsibility to deliver the truth.”
Speaking at an event hosted by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) on Wednesday, Sinclair Chief Operating Officer Robert Weisbord said the broadcaster is subject to different First Amendment standards as a result of its decision to obtain federally-issued broadcast licenses, compared to platforms like streaming services and social media companies which are not regulated for content.
“Look at the difference in the way the First Amendment is applied to us and to other content companies,” Weisbord said. “(Facebook parent company) Meta has issued a statement that their content is not fact-checked. We have a fiduciary responsibility to deliver the truth.”
Sinclair was one of two broadcasters that decided to pull Kimmel’s program last month. The boycott came two days after Kimmel delivered a politically-charged monologue that focused on the aftermath of the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
The monologue went unnoticed for about two days, until Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr criticized the show during an interview with a right-of-center podcast.
Carr expressed contempt against ABC for allowing Kimmel’s monologue to air, and said the FCC might make it difficult for the Disney-owned network to move forward with business that requires his agency’s approval. He also encouraged local TV broadcasters to pre-empt the show, a practice that effectively delays the airing of a program until a later time.
Within hours of his comments, Sinclair and peer broadcaster Nexstar Media Group said they would take a stronger action against ABC, choosing instead to pull the program from their local ABC affiliates across the country. ABC ultimately put the show on a week-long hiatus.
During the suspension, Sinclair and Nexstar denied their pending business transactions that require FCC approval influenced their decisions on the Kimmel matter. On Wednesday, Weisbord claimed Disney’s decision to suspend Kimmel’s show was entirely their decision, and not influenced by the actions of the two largest owners of its ABC affiliated stations.
“We didn’t tell ABC to suspend Kimmel; that was an ABC/Disney decision, not a Sinclair decision,” he said.
Weisbord predicted the situation might have been different if broadcast TV stations weren’t held to more-onerous standards as other media platforms.
“We are constrained in certain things whereas streamers have free rein,” Weisbord complained. “One of the struggles for legacy media is that there are so many rules that the creative juices want to go someplace else.”
While Kimmel’s program is considered a late night comedy talk show to vast portions of the population, it is categorized as news programming because it features interviews with public officials and celebrities.
Broadcasters have typically offered news programming as a way to fulfill the “public interest” obligation of their federally-issued licenses, though the term has never been conclusively defined.
Nexstar and Sinclair’s decision to pull Kimmel’s show had national consequences: None of its local stations were allowed to decide for themselves whether to air Kimmel’s program, even if their viewers wanted to see the show.
Some competing broadcast station owners with ABC affiliates in their portfolios were also not on board with the decision to pre-empt the show, fearing it would set a precedent that allowed Carr and others within the Trump administration to dictate programming decisions in the future, according to sources who spoke with The Desk over the past month.
Catherine Bandalamente, the CEO of Graham Media Group, which owns a single ABC affiliate in Texas, expressed surprise that local broadcasters were suddenly burdened with having to gauge whether regulators were going to usurp the First Amendment protections of licensed TV stations.
“We are living up to our obligation as licensees on a daily basis,” Bandalamente said at the NAB event on Wednesday. “At the center of everything is the First Amendment, and making sure we are telling truthful stories. As long as there is no overreach on their side, we will be okay.”
Adam Symson, the CEO of the E. W. Scripps Company, said the FCC’s recent edicts didn’t change the way they were operating their stations, which includes nearly two dozen local ABC affiliates in markets like Denver, San Diego, Phoenix and Detroit.
“The First Amendment is our North Star,” Symson said. “The role we play requires us to act as independent arbiters of truth, and nothing has changed in that way. Regulators’ role is to regulate us; we have a fiduciary duty to the shareholders and communities we serve to operate within the rules of the regulator. But, I don’t see that as being in conflict with the First Amendment.”
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