FCC asked court to dismiss ABC suit over early license renewals
Jimmy Kimmel said Wednesday night that his ABC late-night show would not broadcast his interview with Texas Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico, opting instead to release the conversation on YouTube. Kimmel attributed the decision to what he described as threats from the Federal Communications Commission against ABC, its parent company Disney, and the network’s affiliates.
“For some reason, and I can’t seem to figure out what that reason is, something has changed,” Kimmel said on his show Wednesday. “Now that [President Donald Trump] is president, his FCC has threatened me, threatened our show, threatened our network, ABC, our affiliates, our local stations, based on simple, traditional editorial decisions.”
The dispute centers on the FCC’s recent requests that some ABC affiliates renew their broadcast licenses years ahead of schedule. ABC and Disney have sued the government, alleging the Trump administration is attacking the company for content it dislikes. ABC has framed the early license reviews as a threat to free speech.
On Friday, the FCC moved to have ABC’s lawsuit dismissed. A judge has not yet ruled on that motion.
Kimmel said the decision not to air the Talarico interview on broadcast was made out of consideration for ABC affiliates, whom he said would otherwise have to “deal with this nonsense.” “In the America we live in right now, that is the best we can do, until November, of course,” Kimmel said, then reminded viewers to make sure they are registered to vote.
Talarico, a Texas state representative, is the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate seat. He will face Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in November; Paxton, the Republican nominee, is endorsed by Trump. Polling has shown Talarico slightly ahead of Paxton in the race.
Kimmel pointed out that over the past 20 years of his show, he has interviewed Americans running for office without incident. “I interviewed Donald Trump when he was running for president in 2015,” Kimmel said. Trump returned to the show before he became the 2016 Republican nominee, Kimmel added, and his guest list has ranged “from Hillary Clinton to Ted Cruz to Donald Trump himself.”
The Talarico interview is not the first time CBS or ABC-affiliated late-night programming has handled the candidate outside its broadcast lineup. In February, CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert interviewed Talarico on The Late Show, but the segment aired only on YouTube after CBS decided to cut it from the broadcast. “We were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast,” Colbert said at the time.
The Kimmel interview with Talarico is scheduled to appear on Kimmel’s YouTube channel on Thursday.