Regarding the network itself, ABC owner Disney will need “the Trump administration’s greenlight for ESPN’s deal to buy the NFL Network,” notes Deadline.

Not a great look, whatever the personal or commercial aspects of the decision to suspend Kimmel.

The protest

Given all this background, it is perhaps inevitable that we would see a strong backlash to Kimmel’s suspension. Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, for instance, took to X to ask his former company:

Where has all the leadership gone? If not for university presidents, law firm managing partners, and corporate chief executives standing up against bullies, who then will step up for the first amendment? The “suspending indefinitely” of Jimmy Kimmel immediately after the Chairman of the FCC’s aggressive yet hollow threatening of the Disney Company is yet another example of out-of-control intimidation. Maybe the Constitution should have said, “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, except in one’s political or financial self-interest.”

Hundreds of Hollywood stars, ranging from Tom Hanks to Meryl Streep to Lin-Manuel Miranda, signed on to an open letter about Kimmel, saying that “efforts by leaders to pressure artists, journalists, and companies with retaliation for their speech strike at the heart of what it means to live in a free country.”

Other artists, like Sarah McLachlan and Jewel, recently refused to perform during the gala premiere of a new ABC documentary on their Lilith Fair concert series.

Even Republican politicians like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz have complained about Carr’s actions. Cruz called Carr’s comments akin to a “mafioso coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here, it’d be a shame if something happened to it.'” (Republicans have long complained about the Biden’s administration’s requests to social media sites to block posts sharing COVID misinformation, so at least Cruz and Paul are consistent with their criticisms.)

https://arstechnica.com/culture/2025/09/kimmel-censorship-fiasco-shows-that-protests-still-matter-and-can-still-work/