{"id":325046,"date":"2025-10-22T23:34:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T23:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/325046\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T23:34:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T23:34:11","slug":"jimmy-kimmel-clash-was-never-about-the-first-amendment-sinclair-exec-insists-fcc-overreach-nexstar-tegna-mega-deal-worry-ceo-of-boutique-station-group-graham-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/325046\/","title":{"rendered":"Jimmy Kimmel Clash Was \u201cNever About The First Amendment\u201d, Sinclair Exec Insists; FCC \u201cOverreach\u201d & Nexstar-Tegna Mega-Deal Worry CEO Of Boutique Station Group Graham Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tRob Weisbord, COO and President of Local Media at Sinclair, insisted that the local TV<\/a> station giant\u2019s recent clash with late-night host Jimmy Kimmel<\/a> was \u201cnever about the First Amendment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn meetings with ABC after pulling the show from its affiliates, the company emphasized its \u201cheritage of serving our communities with trusted content,\u201d Weisbord recalled. An FCC<\/a> license requires Sinclair to \u201cnot bring any biases with us\u201d and being \u201cfact-checked and telling you the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKimmel was yanked<\/a> (and later returned to the air) after an offhand joke about Donald Trump supporters\u2019 political maneuvering after the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Initially, Sinclair said it would put a Kirk tribute special in Kimmel\u2019s timeslot, but it later backtracked on that plan.<\/p>\n

\n\tWeisbord was asked about the situation during a wide-ranging panel Wednesday at the NAB Show New York. In the days after Kirk\u2019s shooting, \u201cThere was a moment, and there\u2019s this discourse happening in the country, where you can\u2019t make light of somebody being murdered, assassinated, in front of their kids and their wife,\u201d Weisbord said. (Kimmel later clarified<\/a> that he was not aiming to make light of Kirk himself.) \u201cThe show is titled late night entertainment, not a political nature. If you want to go and have a spat, go to social media, because there\u2019s no constraints on social media.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Sinclair exec noted, \u201cWe didn\u2019t tell them to suspend Kimmel. That\u2019s, uh, that was an ABC\/Disney decision, not a Sinclair decision at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCatherine Badalamente, CEO of Graham Media<\/a> Group, later voiced concern about the FCC\u2019s risk of \u201coverreach.\u201d While she didn\u2019t invoke FCC Chairman Brendan Carr\u2019s role in the Kimmel suspension (which began with the chairman\u2019s appearance on a far-right podcast attackaing the host\u2019s monologue), she alluded to generally unsettling signs.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI will not lie and say that we don\u2019t sit there and think about all of the concerns we have when it comes to maybe FCC getting into a lane that I don\u2019t know they should be spending as much time on, personally,\u201d Badamalente said. She went on to acknowledge the FCC\u2019s role in making sure station owners meet their obligations as licensees. \u201cIt\u2019s at the center of everything, the First Amendment, and making sure that we can tell truthful stories. \u2026 As long as we continue to do that, I think that, you know, and we don\u2019t have issues when it comes to telling those stories, and we don\u2019t have people overreaching and maybe potentially getting involved in things that I think might be overreach on their side, we\u2019ll be okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPanelists were asked about their dealings with Carr\u2019s FCC, which has taken a far more aggressive approach to media regulation than at any other time in its generally staid history. While Carr has championed deregulation and abolishing the current 39% cap on station ownership, ideas cheered by many broadcasters, he has also fronted efforts seen as clashing with stations\u2019 First Amendment principles. Along with the Kimmel saga, he has accused CBS News and other broadcasters of \u201cnews distortion\u201d and often ventures outside of his jurisdiction, recently blasting YouTube TV during its carriage fight with Fox News\u2019 parent company.<\/p>\n

\n\tSymson maintained that \u201cnothing has changed\u201d about the FCC\u2019s involvement in stations\u2019 business operations. \u201cThe regulator\u2019s role is to regulate us,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have a duty, a fiduciary duty to our shareholders, as well as a duty to the communities we serve, to operate in a way that works within the rules of the regulator. But I don\u2019t see that in conflict with the First Amendment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIndustry consolidation promoted by Carr and major station groups gives Badalamente reason to \u201cworry,\u201d she said. Nexstar\u2019s pending offer to acquire rival Tegna<\/a>, as proposed, would give Nexstar a massive station portfolio reaching 80% of U.S. households.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFewer voices in the community, fewer voices in the market is a concern,\u201d Badalamente said. Graham, whose small portfolio is known for punching above its weight, has persevered through previous rounds of contraction. Still, Badalamente said, \u201cToday it\u2019s a lot harder for me to imagine that world where I can have seven stations in six markets. \u2026 We want to make sure that there\u2019s going to be a diverse number of owners out there and that we aren\u2019t just consolidating to one or two.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAdam Symson, CEO of large station owner E.W. Scripps, argued that the realities of the current business climate are forcing top players to expand. \u201cThere\u2019s so much fragmentation out there relative to news consumers and advertising audiences that we are in a very, very different competitive environment than we were when I got into this business,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd, you know, I don\u2019t know if there is enough capital to deploy in a market to support five television stations doing exactly the same thing, competing with each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tStation groups and Carr have focused attention on the fact that broadcasters compete for attention with Big Tech, which is not limited by geography. \u201cCan you imagine if the folks who built Netflix were constrained to only do so, over the internet, to 39% of the country?\u201d Symson said. \u201cThe economics wouldn\u2019t allow them to actually create the business they had there. And that\u2019s the competitor that we\u2019re dealing with. I mean, that\u2019s the environment that we\u2019re operating in.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rob Weisbord, COO and President of Local Media at Sinclair, insisted that the local TV station giant\u2019s recent…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":325047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[171,36397,162067,36496,162068,92027,162069,92028,173,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-325046","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-fcc","10":"tag-graham-media","11":"tag-local-tv","12":"tag-nab-show-ny","13":"tag-nexstar-media-group","14":"tag-nexstar-tegna-deal","15":"tag-tegna","16":"tag-tv","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115420441505263456","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}