Disney has lost $1.5 billion in market cap and nearly $3 per share on its stock price since its move, at the behest of the Trump administration, to “indefinitely” remove Jimmy Kimmel from the ABC late-night schedule.
Disney+ subscribers have been canceling in droves, to a point where the cancellation page has been crashing for some users.
Even Disney+ stars are joining the movement – actress Tatiana Maslany, star of “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law,” called for her more than 500,000 fans on Instagram to “Cancel your (Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN) subscriptions,” in a reel she posted to her Instagram account, and Misha Collins, the star of “Supernatural,” posted on X to his more than 2.6 million followers that he would cancel his Disney+ subscription “indefinitely.”
“It’s pretty easy to cancel your Disney+ subscription, and a coordinated, national day of cancellations would send a very clear message about our values as Americans,” actor Wil Wheaton posted to BlueSky.
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- ABC suspends Jimmy Kimmel over Charlie Kirk
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Kimmel, whose contract with ABC is up next year, is reportedly in talks with Disney and ABC execs about his future with the network.
He has held down the 11:35 p.m. ET time slot since 2003, and become a face of the network, serving as host of the rebooted “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” and the Academy Awards.
The pressure on ABC to remove Kimmel’s talk show came from Nexstar, which owns 32 local ABC affiliates, and is seeking approval from the FCC for a planned $6.2 billion merger with the Northern Virginia-based Tegna, which owns 18 ABC affiliates among its roster of local TV stations.
Nexstar announced on Wednesday that it would not air Kimmel’s show following tepid comments from the comedian about the official narrative on the Charlie Kirk murder investigation – and a threat from FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr that the FCC might take steps to revoke ABC’s broadcast license over the matter, which, turns out, is not something that the FCC can actually do.
ICYMI
The right-wing disinformation group that identifies as Sinclair Broadcasting followed the Nexstar announcement with its own statement that it would pre-empt Kimmel’s show on its 34 local ABC affiliates, b bringing the total to 66 – roughly a quarter of the 250 local affiliates under the ABC umbrella.
Disney and ABC could have decided to continue to air Kimmel’s show to the smaller audience, but instead capitulated to the Trump administration, which is proving to be costly – both in terms of the companies’ reputation and, more to the point, their bottom lines.
And then there’s how capitulating to a bully only invites more bullying – Carr, not satisfied with getting Kimmel removed from the ABC lineup, is now threatening to target the morning show “The View,” whose hosts are also critical of the Trump administration.
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Chris Graham
