The Jimmy Kimmel saga, station ownership, and the FCC
Marketplace All-in-One
Marketplace
4.5 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 24 September 2025
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After being pulled by ABC, Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show returned to TV last night. Thing is, station groups Nexstar and Sinclair — which control ABC affiliates that reach about 20% of the country — opted out. Nexstar is working on a $6 billion merger with Tegna, awaiting Trump administration approval. All of this highlights a widening gap between big TV networks and local station owners. And later: If Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill can’t reach a deal, many federal agencies will close a week from today.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The different goals of owning a TV station versus owning a TV network. I'm David Brancaccio in Los Angeles. After being pulled by ABC last week, Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show was back on TV last night, but there's an asterisk. The station group's Next Star and Sinclair, which control ABC affiliates that reach about 20% of the country, opted out. |
| 0:24.6 | As you've been hearing, Kimmel was generally somber, saying he understood why his comments about the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk were, quote, ill-timed, unclear, or maybe both. |
| 0:35.1 | There are issues of appropriate speech versus free speech at play in this saga, |
| 0:39.5 | but here is some business context regarding companies that own groups of affiliate TV stations. |
| 0:45.2 | Two station groups, Nexstar and Tegna, are working on a $6 billion merger. |
| 0:50.2 | That plus the business models of the broadcast stations may be diverging from the models of the firms that own the networks. |
| 0:56.5 | That's the view of Craig LeMay, a professor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. |
| 1:02.1 | Professor, welcome. |
| 1:03.2 | Thank you. |
| 1:04.2 | Next Star, Tegna, more people may know Sinclair broadcasting. |
| 1:09.4 | These station groups are big players, but not necessarily what, household names? |
| 1:14.7 | Not household names, but they are very big players, and they have interests that are not the same as the networks. |
| 1:19.5 | They also have licenses to protect, where the networks actually do not, except in their owned and operated stations. |
| 1:24.9 | And the networks see their competition in the future with big streamers. |
| 1:28.2 | I just think the Kimmel episode has really put the spotlight on this new era of affiliate |
| 1:33.2 | network relationships. |
| 1:34.9 | And we'll see where it's going to go. |
| 1:36.4 | Divergent business models, divergent goals, but also divergent decisions, right? |
| 1:40.9 | I mean, Disney, ABC put Kimmel back on, yet Sinclair and Next Star did not put that first |
| 1:50.1 | episode back on the air. I mean, it plays out with content. It does. And it's, you know, it's always |
| 1:56.0 | been the case that affiliates have the option not to run it if they find it offensive or think |
| 2:00.2 | it would offend their audience. But this is, it doesn't play out in public the way this particular episode has. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Marketplace, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Marketplace and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.