Reuters: Disney said on Monday it would return comedian Jimmy Kimmel to late-night television on Tuesday, six days after his show was threatened with a regulatory probe and suspended over comments he made about conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
Disney’s move to restore the “Jimmy Kimmel Live” show to the lineup of its ABC network represented the highest-profile challenge yet from a communications company to an escalating crackdown by US President Donald Trump on his perceived media critics through litigation and warnings regulatory action.
The U-turn came after several prominent conservatives, including US Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican who leads oversight of the Federal Communications Commission, joined Democrats in criticising the head of the FCC for threatening retaliation against ABC.
Disney also faced pressure from consumers rallying against Kimmel’s suspension by cancelling their subscriptions to the Disney+ streaming subscription service.
Kimmel, who has frequently ridiculed Trump on his show, drew outrage from conservatives for saying that Trump’s supporters were desperate to characterise Kirk’s accused assassin “as anything other than one of them” and for trying to “score political points” from his murder.
The comments came in the opening monologue of Kimmel’s Monday night broadcast.
