Jimmy Kimmel’s FCC Fight Could Officially Mark the End of an Era for Late-Night TV
Last year, Jimmy Kimmelwas taken off the air after remarks he made following the death of podcaster Charlie Kirk. This sparked a heated discussion about censorship, along with furious audiences canceling their Disney+ and Hulu subscriptions en masse. Eventually, Kimmel was put back on the air, but it looks like he's back in the crosshairs again after hosting a faux version of the White House Correspondents' Dinner. This time, ABC as a whole is being targeted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the fallout could radically reshape America's TV landscape.
The FCC is preparing to initiate early license reviews for eight ABC stations, which is a practice that's unheard of in the organization's history. Disney and ABC are fighting back, filing a brief that alleges the FCC is starting these license reviews as retaliation for Kimmel's jokes about Melania Trump:
"There is no question why the Commission is singling out these eight stations,...Each is owned by ABC, and the Administration has openly and repeatedly called for the revocation of ABC’s licenses, because it dislikes the content and viewpoints expressed on ABC network programs."
By filing this brief, ABC is drawing a line in the sand and showing how the FCC could potentially use its power to crack down on free speech. It also highlights how Jimmy Kimmel Live won't be the only show in jeopardy if the FCC goes through with the license renewals.
The FCC-ABC Case Affects More than 'Jimmy Kimmel Live'
Jimmy Kimmel Live isn't the only show mentioned in ABC and Disney's brief, as The Viewis alsoa potential target of the FCC. Many of The View's hosts, particularly Whoopi Goldberg, have been critical of President Donald Trump; ABC argues that FCC chair Brendan Carr is trying to carry out Trump's wishes to silence anyone who criticizes him, and points out that the organization shouldn't have the ability to police comedy or opinion programming, which Jimmy Kimmel Live and The View both fall under. A single sentence from the brief sums things up: "The retaliation against ABC is a signal to every media company in the country: Accommodate the Administration’s view of what news coverage should look like or pay the price."
It's not hard to argue ABC's point of view, particularly when it comes to Trump's reaction to other network programming. The president has called for Comcast to be investigated for treason and spent the majority of the White House Correspondents' dinner insulting the journalists in attendance. Given this unchecked vitriol against the press and shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live and The View for expressing their own opinions, the FCC-ABC case could mean that other shows on other networks could find themselves under scrutiny for merely expressing their opinions. It's a frightening thought, and it shouldn't be the norm. Whether you agree or disagree with something that's being said on television, the hosts of late-night shows, talk shows, and the news should be free to express themselves — just as viewers are free to change the channel.
Collider Exclusive · Taylor Sheridan Universe Quiz
Which Taylor Sheridan
Show Do You Belong In?
Yellowstone · Landman · Tulsa King · Mayor of Kingstown
Four worlds. All of them brutal, complicated, and built on power, loyalty, and the price of survival. Taylor Sheridan doesn't write heroes — he writes people who do what they have to do and live with the cost. Ten questions will reveal which one of his worlds you were made for.
🤠Yellowstone
🛢️Landman
👑Tulsa King
⚖️Mayor of Kingstown
FIND YOUR WORLD →
01
Where does your power come from?
In Sheridan's world, everyone has leverage. The question is what kind.
ALand, legacy, and a name that's been feared and respected for generations.
BKnowing the deal better than anyone else in the room — and being willing to walk away first.
CReputation. I've earned it the hard way, and everyone in the room knows it.
DBeing the only person both sides will talk to. That makes me indispensable — and dangerous.
NEXT QUESTION →
02
Who do you put first, no matter what?
Loyalty in Sheridan's universe is always absolute — and always costly.
AFamily — blood or chosen. The ranch, the name, the people who carry it with me.
BThe company — or whoever's signing the cheques. Loyalty follows the contract.
CMy crew. The men who stood with me when it counted — I don't abandon them for anything.
DMy community — even when my community is a powder keg and I'm the only thing stopping it from blowing.
NEXT QUESTION →
03
Someone crosses a line. How do you respond?
Every Sheridan protagonist has a line. What matters is what happens after it's crossed.
AQuietly, decisively, and in a way that sends a message to everyone watching.
BI outmanoeuvre them legally, financially, and politically before they even know I've moved.
CDirectly. Old school. You cross me, you hear about it to your face — and then you deal with the consequences.
DI absorb it, calculate the fallout, and find the move that keeps the whole system from collapsing.
NEXT QUESTION →
04
Where do you feel most in your element?
Sheridan's worlds are as much about place as they are about people.
AWide open land — mountains, sky, silence. Somewhere you can see trouble coming from a mile away.
BThe oil fields of West Texas — brutal, lucrative, and indifferent to whoever happens to be standing on top of them.
CA mid-size city where the rules haven't quite caught up yet — fertile ground for someone with vision and nerve.
DA rust-belt town built around a prison — where everyone's life is shaped by what's inside those walls.
NEXT QUESTION →
05
How do you feel about operating in the grey?
Nobody in a Sheridan show has clean hands. The question is how they carry the dirt.
AI do what has to be done to protect what's mine. I'll answer for it eventually — but not today.
BGrey is just business. The line moves depending on what's at stake, and I move with it.
CI have a code — it's not the law's code, but it's mine, and I don't break it.
DI've made peace with it. Keeping the peace requires compromises most people don't have the stomach for.
NEXT QUESTION →
06
What are you actually fighting to hold onto?
Every Sheridan character is fighting a war. The real question is what they're defending.
AA way of life that the modern world is doing everything it can to erase.
BMy position — and the leverage that comes with being the person everyone needs to close a deal.
CRelevance. I've been away, I've been written off — and I'm proving that was a mistake.
DWhatever fragile order I've managed to build — because without it, everything burns.
NEXT QUESTION →
07
How do you lead?
Authority in Sheridan's world is never given — it's established, maintained, and constantly tested.
ABy example and force of will. People follow me because they believe in what I'm protecting — and because they know what happens if they don't.
BThrough negotiation and leverage. I don't need people to like me — I need them to need me.
CBy being the smartest, most experienced person in the room and making sure everyone quietly knows it.
DBy being the calm centre of a situation that would spiral without me — and accepting that nobody thanks you for it.
NEXT QUESTION →
08
Someone new arrives and tries to change how things work. Your reaction?
Every Sheridan show has an outsider disrupting an established order. Sometimes that outsider is you.
AThey'll learn. Or they won't. Either way, the land was here before them and it'll be here after.
BI figure out what they want, what they're worth, and whether they're an asset or a problem — fast.
CI was the outsider once. I give them a chance — one — to show they understand respect.
DNew players destabilise everything I've built. I assess the threat and manage it before it manages me.
NEXT QUESTION →
09
What has your position cost you?
Nobody gets to where these characters are without paying for it. The bill is always personal.
AMy family's peace — maybe their innocence. The ranch demands everything, and I've let it take too much.
BRelationships, time, any version of a normal life. The job eats everything that isn't nailed down.
CYears. Decades in some cases. Time I can't get back — but I'm not done yet.
DMy conscience, mostly. And the ability to ever fully trust anyone on either side of the wall.
NEXT QUESTION →
10
When it's over, what do you want people to say?
Sheridan's characters all know the ending is coming. The question is what they leave behind.
AThat I held the line. That the land is still ours and everything I did was worth it.
BThat I was the best at what I did and that no deal ever got closed without me at the table.
CThat I built something real, somewhere nobody expected it, and I did it on my own terms.
DThat I kept the peace when nobody else could — and that the town is still standing because of it.
REVEAL MY SHOW →
Sheridan Has Spoken
You Belong In…
The show that claimed the most of your answers is the world you were built for. If two tied, both are shown — you're complicated enough to straddle two Sheridan universes.
🤠
Yellowstone
🛢️
Landman
👑
Tulsa King
⚖️
Mayor of Kingstown
You are a Dutton — or you might as well be. You understand that some things are worth protecting at any cost, and that the modern world's indifference to history, to land, to legacy, is not something you're willing to accept quietly. You lead from the front, you carry your family's weight without complaint, and when someone threatens what's yours, you don't escalate — you finish it. You're not cruel. But you are absolute. In Yellowstone's world, that combination of ferocity and loyalty doesn't make you a villain. It makes you the only thing standing between everything that matters and everyone who wants to take it.
You thrive in the chaos of high-stakes negotiation, where the money is enormous, the margins are thin, and the wrong word in the wrong room can cost everyone everything. You're a fixer — the person called when a situation is already on fire and needs someone with the nerve to walk into it. West Texas oil country rewards exactly what you are: sharp, adaptable, unsentimental, and absolutely clear-eyed about what people want and what they'll do to get it. You're not naive enough to think this world is fair. You're smart enough to be the one deciding who it's fair to.
You are a Dwight Manfredi — someone who has served their time, paid their dues, and arrived somewhere unexpected with nothing but their reputation and their wits. You adapt without losing yourself. You build loyalty through respect rather than fear, though you're not above reminding people that the two aren't mutually exclusive. Tulsa King is for people who are still standing when everyone assumed they'd be finished — who find, in an unfamiliar place, that they're more capable than the world gave them credit for. You don't need a throne. You build one, wherever you happen to land.
You carry the weight of a system that is broken by design, and you do it anyway — because someone has to, and because you're the only one positioned to do it without the whole thing collapsing. Mike McLusky's world is for people who are comfortable operating where there are no good options, only less catastrophic ones. You speak every language: law enforcement, criminal, political, human. That fluency makes you invaluable and it makes you a target. You've made your peace with both. Mayor of Kingstown belongs to people who understand that keeping the peace is not the same as being at peace — and who do the job regardless.
↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ
Jimmy Kimmel and Other Late Night Hosts Have Been The Target of Donald Trump's Ire
The conflict between the FCC and ABC is another reminder of the shifting landscape of late-night television, as most late-night hosts have found themselves under fire. The Late Show with Stephen Colbertwas canceled last year after its host called the Paramount-Skydance merger "a big fat bribe," sparking another debate about censorship. Donald Trump has also targeted Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon, calling for them both to be fired by NBC and saying that Meyers' jokes about him are "probably illegal"; this is despite the fact that Fallon had him on his show.
Perhaps the strongest verdict on the FCC-ABC conflict has come from former FCC chairs, who are calling Brendan Carr's actions "an assault on free speech disguised as regulatory process." It's a moment that shows that there's more than the fate of one late-night show on the line, and that ABC isn't the only entity willing to speak out.
Release Date
January 26, 2003
Writers
Joel Hodgson, Sal Iacono, Tony Barbieri, Eric Immerman, Jonathan Bines, Rick Rosner, Bryan Paulk, Danny Ricker, Jeff Loveness, Josh Halloway, Bess Kalb
