While much of the country wonders what muzzling Jimmy Kimmel signals for the future of free speech and the First Amendment, one detail of the story stands out: Nexstar, the largest television-station owner in the country, chose to preempt the show for its affiliates before Disney pulled new episodes of Jimmy Kimmel Live! “indefinitely.” Both responses were reactions to right-wing backlash over Kimmel’s comments on the killing of Charlie Kirk, but in yanking the program from the 32 ABC stations it owns, Nexstar was the first entity to silence Kimmel, followed by fellow conglomerate Sinclair and Disney itself, which also owns ABC stations in eight markets including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco.
