Fallout from Kimmel Continues w Free Speech in the Crosshairs
The Ben Ferguson Podcast
iHeartPodcasts
4.8 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 20 September 2025
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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Stephen Colbert
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The cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert is presented as a business decision, not political censorship.
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Executives reportedly decided months earlier that the show was not financially viable, losing tens of millions annually.
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The narrative dismisses the claim that Colbert was targeted due to pressure from Trump.
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Jimmy Kimmel
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Kimmel’s suspension is linked to his controversial comments about the Charlie Kirk incident, but the commentary stresses that his ratings collapse and loss of advertiser-friendly demographics were the decisive factors.
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Affiliates like Nextstar and Sinclair reportedly refused to continue carrying his program.
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The document argues that ABC/Disney tolerated his divisive rhetoric for years until viewership became unsustainable.
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Free Speech vs. Business Decisions
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Ben pushes back against framing these actions as “censorship” or “free speech suppression.”
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It stresses that private companies acted due to financial losses, not government interference.
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The writer warns conservatives not to advocate for FCC crackdowns, as weaponizing government against speech could backfire politically.
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Criticism of Media & Late-Night Hosts
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The episode portrays mainstream media, Colbert, Kimmel, and their peers (like Jon Stewart and Jimmy Fallon) as biased, dishonest, and partisan, often accused of misleading audiences and alienating half the country.
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Late-night TV is depicted as in decline due to excessive politicization and hostility toward conservatives.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an IHeart podcast. |
| 0:05.2 | All right, let's start with the issue that the media has decided to go all in on. |
| 0:12.1 | And they're claiming that this is what dictators and tyrants do. |
| 0:17.2 | They're claiming that Donald Trump has gotten late night comed comedians fired, Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel. |
| 0:25.7 | And they're saying, like, who's going to be next? |
| 0:28.7 | And this is what a dictator and a tyrant does. |
| 0:32.0 | That is a lie. |
| 0:33.8 | And we're going to talk about that lie so you understand it. |
| 0:37.1 | When Stephen Colbert was, his show was canceled. and we're going to talk about that lie so you understand it. |
| 0:42.0 | When Stephen Colbert was, his show was canceled, all right? |
| 0:44.7 | And it's a different way than being fired. |
| 0:49.1 | It was a canceling of the show for one reason. |
| 0:55.6 | It was a canceling of the show because it wasn't making money and apparently it was losing, |
| 1:03.9 | listen carefully, like $40 million a year. That is a lot of money. There was not pressure from the president of the United States of America for Stephen Colbert's show to be canceled. |
| 1:09.5 | There have been a lot in the media that are now |
| 1:11.2 | rewriting history as we speak and they're saying that. In fact, the people that are in |
| 1:16.9 | charge of the network have now explicitly said that CBS, it was not threatened or pushed |
| 1:25.1 | to do what I just said. Like, that didn't happen. And so if you look at the |
| 1:31.7 | facts, it was a money issue. The show costs way too much money to produce and the ratings |
| 1:38.5 | weren't there. Now, when Stephen Colbert was let go, I said this on CNN at the time, and I made it very clear. |
| 1:46.4 | And I said, what you guys are not understanding is this is not canceling of an individual |
| 1:52.5 | because of what he said. In fact, I believe that CBS would love to keep Colbert on attacking |
... |
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