Kimmel is about the Nexstar Merger

[Wiz Imp]

19. I'm sure that's true to some degree, but I don't think it's the whole story

ABC has around 250 affiliate stations in the US. Only about 10% of those are owned by Nexstar. So Nexstar decides to pull Jimmy Kimmel. There's no way that should have forced ABC to acquiesce to them. How would it hurt ABC significantly if about 25 stations out of 250 stopped airing Jimmy Kimmel? It's not like most those stations could really threaten to become affiliates of one of the other networks. I really think Nexstar is more dependent on keeping those ABC affiliations intact than ABC is.

No, I think somebody at ABC decided (independent of Nexstar) that they either agreed with punishing Kimmel, or were scared the FCC would pull all the affiliate licenses. I don't think they could get away with that. There is no justification to pull their licenses based on the criteria under which a license can be pulled. ABC would almost certainly win a court battle.