Less than a week after his late-night talk show was suspended indefinitely following his controversial remarks made in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death, Jimmy Kimmel is returning to ABC.
Northeast Ohioans who want to watch “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” can now do so starting Tuesday night on WEWS Channel 5.
“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,” Disney, ABC’s owner, said in a Sept. 22, statement to USA TODAY. “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.”
During the opening monologue on the Sept. 15 episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”, Kimmel criticized supporters of President Donald Trump following the arrest of Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old charged with Kirk’s murder.
“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said in the episode.
The late-night host later compared President Trump’s mourning of the slain political commentator to “the way a 4-year-old mourns a goldfish.”
Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, criticized Kimmel and Disney, and ABC made the decision to suspend the show following the FCC chair’s comments. Both the Sinclair Broadcasting Group and the Nexstar Media Group also began to preempt episodes of Kimmel’s show and stop broadcasting the show to their local affiliates.
While Sinclair announced they will continue to preempt episodes of Kimmel’s show despite ABC bringing the comedian back, Nexstar has not yet announced their plans.
WEWS Channel 5 is an affiliate station of Scripps News Group.
USA TODAY contributed to this report.
Reporter Anthony Thompson can be reached at ajthompson@gannett.com, or on Twitter @athompsonABJ
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ returns in some markets. Will the show air in Northeast Ohio?
Reporting by Anthony Thompson, Akron Beacon Journal / Akron Beacon Journal
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