ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel last Wednesday for saying this on-air: “The MAGA gang [are] desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.” Reportedly, there have been conversations all up and down ABC leadership and Kimmel. Every report emphasizes that Disney CEO Bob Iger made the call to suspend Kimmel’s show indefinitely. While everyone is rightly concerned about the First Amendment issues, part of me wonders if, from a corporate perspective, Iger was simply trying to cool the temperature – sort of “let’s hit pause and see where we are in a week when everyone has cooled down.” Maybe I’m giving Iger too much credit though – reportedly, both sides (ABC and Kimmel) are talking and discussions are “ongoing” as of this writing. Well, Disney’s former CEO Michael Eisner has some thoughts about Iger’s (lack of) leadership in this moment:
Michael Eisner, the former Disney CEO who exited the company 20 years ago, criticized the senior leaders of his former employer — and, implicitly, current chief Bob Iger — over ABC’s suspending Jimmy Kimmel‘s late-night show “indefinitely.”
“Where has all the leadership gone?” Eisner wrote Friday in a post on X. “If not for university presidents, law firm managing partners, and corporate chief executives standing up against bullies, who then will step up for the first amendment? The ‘suspending indefinitely’ of Jimmy Kimmel immediately after the Chairman of the FCC’s aggressive yet hollow threatening of the Disney Company is yet another example of out-of-control intimidation. Maybe the Constitution should have said, ‘Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, except in one’s political or financial self-interest.’ By-the-way, for the record, this ex-CEO finds Jimmy Kimmel very talented and funny.”
The kids won’t know this, but it’s actually a pretty big deal that Eisner spoke up. Eisner’s tenure at Disney was legendary, and his time as Disney CEO saw the company being built into a modern multiplatform cultural empire. Would Eisner have made different choices in Iger’s position? Possibly.
What else? There’s been a lot of reaction from celebrities, Democrats and Hollywood types. I wasn’t expecting this, but Ted Cruz spoke up in defense of Kimmel and the First Amendment. Cruz said that FCC commissioner’s threats to ABC were “dangerous as hell” and “right out of Goodfellas.” Several major Disney-associated directors and stars have spoken up as well:
Within 48 hours of its decision to pull late-night host Jimmy Kimmel off the air indefinitely, the parent company of ABC has once again found itself at the center of a bitter political battle. The company now faces protests outside its studios, celebrities threatening to break ties and political pressure from Republicans and Democrats.
The blowback has been swift. Damon Lindelof, creator of ABC’s “Lost,” said in an Instagram post on Thursday that he would not work with the company if Kimmel’s suspension was not lifted. The Emmy-winning showrunner has a long-standing relationship with the studio, having worked with them on “Lost” for six seasons from 2004 to 2010.
Tatiana Maslany, who starred in Marvel’s “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law,” which aired its first and only season on Disney+ in 2022, posted a call to her followers on Instagram to “cancel your @disneyplus @hulu @espn subscriptions!”
There was a seemingly organic response to Kimmel’s suspension: people really did cancel their Disney/Hulu subscription. At a steady clip too – I’ve seen some evidence on social media that the mass subscription cancellations are scaring the sh-t out of Disney. Remember that Disney also owns ESPN and ESPN+ too – I’m reminding myself to cancel my subscription (which I only use for tennis). Sinclair owns Tennis Channel, so if you have Tennis Channel Plus, cancel or unsubscribe.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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