Starting Tonight, Jimmy Kimmel is BACK! Just Not All the Way Back.

Jim Ruymen. Shutterstock Images.

By my calculations, since Jimmy Kimmel Live got suspended its been six days. A few dozen incendiary reports from insiders:

A handful of protests from people supporting him:

Some social media counter-protests from people trying to give common objects a bigger audience in the key demo than Kimmel's:

A backlash against Disney-ABC that hasn't done its stock value any favors:

And roughly 10 billion hours of exaggerated, hyperbolic, overly dramatic bloviating from both ends of the socio-political spectrum making it sound like a late night talk show getting suspended is the battle that's going to change the course of human history. That depending on who you're talking to, what happens to the guy who gets $16 million a year to host the second lowest rated talk show in his time slot, we're either going to turn America into a utopia or hand Sauron the One Ring and plunge the world into eternal darkness. 

So where does that leave us today? Here:

Source - Disney and ABC will bring the comedian back to its schedule starting Tuesday night, after a decision to take his show, “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” off the air for an indefinite period of time. “Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country.  It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive,” the company said in a statement. “We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”     

So I guess this it the 1st Amendment is still there in black-and-which inside that hermetically-sealed, blast-proof glass case in the National Archives after all. Despite rumors to the contrary, no one's shredded it and sent the scraps to the toilet paper mill yet. Democracy is saved! 

Or is it?

By way of explanation, Sinclair owns something like 40 ABC affiliates. Nexstar, who first announced it wasn't going to show JKL owns another 28, but as I'm writing this they haven't said either way what their plans are. The affiliates' opinions matter because they live off local ad revenues. So the ones in right-leaning media markets stand to lose a fortune if suddenly the local car dealerships, healthcare centers and real estate agencies decide they don't want their ads running right after Kimmel works another Charlie Kirk assassination bit into his monologue. 

Of course, there's a lot more money at stake than just the ad revenue from the local tire shop. Both companies are either considering or actively involved in some mergers and acquisitions, just days after Trump's FCC Chair suggested Kimmel should be taken off the air with, "We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way." And responded to a question about the suspension with this GIF:

Which begs the question of where this all stands. I have zero tolerance for a bureaucrat calling balls and strikes on what kind of jokes a comedian is allowed to tell. Just like it was an outrage five years ago when the previous administration was pressuring social media companies like Meta and (then) Twitter to deplatform people for questioning the narratives on Covid or face being regulated by the federal government. If the FCC is going to start regulating content, I'd rather they address the fact every dad on TV is either an ignoramus, a criminal, or the weak, feckless twat in the commercial who can't back the trailer into the driveway while his wife and teenager look at him like he's an embarrassment. And leave the jokes to the people who tell jokes and let the audience decide what's inappropriate.

But at the same time, I'll defend capitalism here. Free Speech is key to our way of life. And so is a Free Market. Like I said the other day, since the invention of TV networks, there have been late night talk shows that end the day with safe, harmless, non-threatening entertainment. A few jokes, a little music, some celebrity banter, and a warm goodnight. It worked for great for over 60 years. Then it all changed. In a country that is split down the middle, the shows like Kimmel's and Stephen Colbert's chose a side. And the side they didn't choose walked away and took their consumer dollars with them. 

So they ended up with less than half the audience:

… and the same budgets, which is not much of a business model:

If the Trump Administration wanted to put an end to Kimmel bashing them every night, all they had to do was wait it out. Do nothing, and let the show die of natural causes. Instead, they demanded be taken off the air, turned him into a martyr. A champion of Free Speech. A symbol of government overreach. And a hero of the same people who wanted him taken off the air 20 years ago when he was going content like this:

As The Who sang it over 50 years ago, "The parting on the left, is now a parting on the right." 

It's absolutely insane to me that late night talk show monologues are at the epicenter of our national discourse. But then again, I probably wouldn't have it any other way. I mean, our real problems can't be all that bad when this is what we're choosing to fight about. And however it works out, the next few days are going to be entertaining as hell.