Nexstar and Sinclair Lost Their Game of Chicken

When ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel off the air last week after his comments about Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the obvious way to understand the story was that it was an attack on free speech. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr had, after all, publicly declared that ABC could do things “the easy way or the hard way” with regard to Kimmel, and then implied that local ABC affiliates might face “fines or license revocation” if nothing was done.

Yet Kimmel’s suspension also reflected something else: a flex by the broadcast-media companies Nexstar and Sinclair, which, over the past two decades, have acquired hundreds of local TV stations, and together own roughly 20 percent of all ABC affiliates. Within hours of Carr’s comments, Nexstar and Sinclair announced that they would be