*

Kimmel's comments on Charlie Kirk shooting sparked outrage

and

regulatory threats

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FCC chief threatened regulatory action, raising

free-speech

concerns

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Nexstar, Sinclair's ABC affiliates to continue preempting

Kimmel

show

By Dawn Chmielewski and Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Jimmy Kimmel was due to

return to ABC's late-night television lineup on Tuesday after a

nearly week-long suspension over his on-air remarks about

conservative activist Charlie Kirk's accused assassin that drew

the ire of the Trump administration.

On his first night back, the comedian was expected to

address his comments from last week that rankled some viewers,

prompted threats of federal regulatory action and led to a

boycott of the "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" show by two major television

station groups.

While ABC parent Walt Disney ( DIS ) announced on Monday that it

was ready to restore Kimmel to the airwaves, station owners

Nexstar Media ( NXST ) and Sinclair have said they will

continue to preempt Kimmel's time slot with other programming on

their network affiliate stations, which reach about 23% of U.S.

households.

Still, Disney's ( DIS ) decision to cut short Kimmel's exile from

late-night television marked a high-profile act of corporate

defiance in the face of an escalating crackdown by U.S.

President Donald Trump on his perceived media critics through

litigation and regulatory threats.

Kimmel, whose show has frequently lampooned Trump, sparked

outrage from conservatives for saying that the president's

supporters were desperate to characterize 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 broadcast

on September 15, five days after Kirk, an influential Trump

ally, author and radio-podcast host, was shot dead while

speaking on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem.

Brendan Carr, head of the Federal Communications Commission,

which regulates broadcasters, said on a podcast hosted by

conservative commentator Benny Johnson on September 17 that

Kimmel's remarks were part of an effort to lie to the American

public about the politics of the man accused of killing Kirk,

and that he was looking at "remedies."

He urged local broadcasters in ABC's network to quit airing

Kimmel and warned stations that they otherwise could face fines

or the loss of licenses.

"We can do this the easy way or the hard way," Carr said

then.

A short time after Carr's remarks, Disney ( DIS ) announced an

immediate, indefinite halt to production of the Kimmel show, as

Nexstar announced it would not carry the late-night program.

Sinclair followed suit later that same day.

Trump, who has repeatedly pressured broadcasters and other

media to squelch content that he has found objectionable,

cheered the news of Kimmel's suspension after it was announced

and referred to it erroneously as an outright cancellation of

the show.

In comments to reporters last week aboard Air Force One, the

president raised the prospect of revoking FCC licenses as

punishment for what he regarded as unfair treatment of him by

broadcasters, saying, "It will be up to Brendan Carr."

Carr's attack on Kimmel marked his latest effort to rein in

media companies for perceived bias against the Trump

administration and Republicans, stoking fears among free-speech

advocates who saw the FCC chairman as wielding the

agency's regulatory authority as a cudgel and drawing criticism

from many Democrats and some Republicans.

Kimmel had planned to address the widening controversy on

his show last Wednesday, but Disney ( DIS ) executives feared the

monologue would have further inflamed the situation - and

suspended the show.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Kimmel had not commented publicly about

his suspension. In announcing the show's return, Disney ( DIS ) said it

found Kimmel's comments about Kirk the week before "were

ill-timed and thus insensitive," but the entertainment giant

stopped short of an outright apology.