Jimmy Kimmel will return to air on Tuesday after his show was suspended following comments he made about the death of Charlie Kirk, Disney has said in a statement released in the last few moments.

“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,” the statement says.

“It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive. 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.”

  • aeris@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    Stupid decision, even from a capitalist point of view. The backlash could have been anticipated from half a world away. Left-wingers will now see this as opportunistic backpedalling, while right-wingers will see it as caving in. What were they thinking in the first place?

    • bagsy@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      Target did the same thing. They pissed off both sides and have been hurting for quite a while now.

      • TooManyFoods@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        Is this even thinking in this quarter? It just feels like a mistake.

        Edit:to be clear the suspension feels like a mistake.

      • aeris@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        I disagree. As a staunch capitalist, I see this decision as nonsensical, ethically and strategically, in both the short and long term. Simply put, it was dumb.

    • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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      13 hours ago

      I think they thought they could get away with it, like when they fired Colbert. Maybe Colbert worked because it was a year away?

      In case anyone hasn’t seen this, I’m posting it again. Here is what Kimmel did that was so wrong. He showed trump completely not care about kirk’s death.

      Starts at about 2 minutes.

      Video of monologue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j3YdxNSzTk

      • aeris@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        I saw the monologue. Nothing in it was a call for political violence, condoning it, or untrue, which makes Disney’s reaction even harder to understand. No one was even talking about them. Their decision just triggered the Streisand effect, especially in today’s charged socio-political climate. And I don’t buy for a second that a corporation as huge as Disney was genuinely afraid of the current U.S. administration.

        • shalafi@lemmy.world
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          11 hours ago

          Disney is trying to get a monster merger pushed through. And here’s the Chairman of the FCC directly threatening them?

          • entropicdrift@lemmy.sdf.org
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            4 hours ago

            It wasn’t Disney who have the merger, it was NexStar, an owner of some 39% of local TV stations, that’s trying to merge with another company to control 80% of local stations. Current law dictates the limit to 39%, so the federal government has them over a barrel. After the FCC chairman directly told them what to do on a podcast, Nexstar did exactly that and threatened to refuse to air Kimmel if Disney didn’t kill the show. Disney did, and now they’ve capitulated to an actual massive groundswell of Disney+ cancelations. Thus the flip-flop.

            So not only was there blatant corruption in both the private and public sector in a more or less open conspiracy to give a bribe to allow a violation of federal law, but by saying what he said, the FCC chairman also pretty clearly violated the first amendment of the constitution of the US.

      • jj4211@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        Colbert was given most of a season to carry on and all involved had a long time to figure out options, and there weren’t explicit overt threats from government. “How bad could it be if they are letting him keep saying everything he wants for months?”. Also people looking to to throw money at South Park which was been gloves off against Trump.

        Kimmel was sudden and with direct specific threats from the government during such a contentuous time.

    • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      What were they thinking in the first place?

      FCC threatened to take their licence. They’ll force Kimmel to say “we don’t know if he was maga” or something and everything continues on eggshells.

      • kcuf@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        The FCC doesn’t license network afaik, they license stations (eg nexstar) which pressured the network.

      • psycho_driver@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        I have a feeling Kimmel isn’t going to be forced to say anything. He (rightfully) despises Trump with every fiber of his soul and would probably choose to stay off the air rather than bend the knee in any way.

        • 3abas@lemmy.world
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          8 hours ago

          I think you’re lionizing Kimmel a bit too much, he just said a few obvious jokes that was likely written by his writing staff. He didn’t say anything brave.

          "we’re still trying to wrap our heads around the senseless murder of the popular podcaster and conservative activist Charlie Kirk yesterday… Some people are cheering this, which is something I won’t ever understand.”

          Those who hate Trump and his rhetoric immediately understand why Nazi fascist deaths are celebrated. They don’t describe them as senseless while heaping unnecessary praise on them. “Popular activist”? How about racist fascist propagandist?

          He’ll toe the line after this correction. Ping me with his return monologue if I’m wrong.

    • paultimate14@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      Disney could have just looked at Target as an example of exactly why they shouldn’t have done this.

    • BassTurd@lemmy.world
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      12 hours ago

      That’s exactly what happened to Bud Light. Bigots hated that BL was partnering with a filthy trans person, and when they caved to the pressure everyone else said “fuck you” but the bigots didn’t all come back. It’s kind of like Target as well. Present this image of being for the minorities, and then caving under the smallest amount of pressure pissing off everyone.

    • DirkMcCallahan@lemmy.world
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      12 hours ago

      It’s definitely opportunistic backpedalling, but it’s a good sign of sorts: We’ve proven that, if we can punish them financially, they’ll do the right thing. For the wrong reasons, obviously, but in these times, I’ll take what we can get.

    • takeda@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      12 hours ago

      They think all the people will return. I’m planning to not resume the service unless Iger and the board of directors changes.

    • s@piefed.world
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      10 hours ago

      We have no values except for that which we think in the moment will make us the most money, and we hope the customers agree

    • dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      11 hours ago

      They were thinking of all of the dollars they just got from the centrists who renewed their subscriptions because victory fascism defeated! But im probably being too cynical about it