Commentary

Beyond Kimmel For TV Station Owners: What's Next?

by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, September 22, 2025

Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Inc. are in a bind -- operating declining over-the-air TV businesses and with the Trump Administration now watching every move they make. Or everything they say.

Even before all this, TV station groups have been pursuing other businesses for growth: Budding national news or locally sourced digital TV networks, more sports programming, and new ad-sales efforts adding growing local/regional streaming business to over-the-air local TV stations' inventory.

But the easiest and biggest way to grow might be just buying up more over-the-air stations to gain competitive control of a marketplace that has been shrinking.

For example, local TV is now only 6% of total U.S. media spend as of June 2025 -- down from 13% in 2017, according to Guideline.

Currently, Federal Communications Commission regulations state that TV station ownership is capped at 39% of all U.S. TV households -- something that has been in place for over 20 years. Both Nexstar and Sinclair -- two of the biggest station groups in the U.S. -- have been virtually at this limit for years.

The Trump Administration has been leaning toward dropping this restriction. But what comes next?

At the same time, President Trump now says he wants to pull broadcast licenses from TV stations that are critical of him. Putting it plainly, this would be a virtual open attack on the freedom of speech, and freedom of the press.

So what do these TV station groups do? They are reading the room -- and have become ultra-sensitive. They found a critical seam (thanks to social media) in “Jimmy Kimmel Live” when it came to Kimmel's monologue.

Like it or not, this put Nexstar and Sinclair in good favor with Trump’s belief on how to handle future broadcast licenses.

Many analysts believe, from all this, that free speech is on the chopping block.

An important question is what happens when the next over-the-air TV comedian, news commentator or unscripted TV host goes off this way -- for something they say as an opinion, inadvertently, or as part of a comedy routine?

Local and regional advertisers -- those supporting over-the-air TV -- will want to know as well.

Will Trump pull broadcast licenses, file more lawsuits, or ask for more million-dollar settlements?

Good luck making free speech less free -- when your business, at its core, is all about speaking.

government, politics, television

4 comments about "Beyond Kimmel For TV Station Owners: What's Next?".

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John Antil from University of Delaware, September 22, 2025 at 4:23 p.m.
Maybe one solution would be to put more good TV shows on the air. The unscripted lousy programs of recent year are a big blame for falling viewers....who wants to watch lousy shows? So many cheap to put on game shows and reality TV costs a fraction of the cost of a quality scriped show like we used to see. And if you want a talk show, would seem there is plenty of room for some that are like what Johnny Carson and David Letterman used to be. Everyone likes to blame the wrong people.

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Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, September 22, 2025 at 5:13 p.m.

John, the problem is that now there are too many programming entities trying to woo viewers but not enough viewing time to support them all. The networks know that if they put out "good" late night or daytime programs--at triple the cost--instead of the "crap"--- that the odds are that they won't get more than a slight upward bump in the ratings--if the "better" shows even prove acceptable--the failure rate of scripted shows is much higher than that of game shows, talk shows, Judge Judy shows, many reality formats, etc.And you can't count on advertisers to support "better" content by paying much higher CPMs. Not these days, anyway.

Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, September 22, 2025 at 5:19 p.m.

Just heard that ABC is putting Kimmel back on the air--now we shall see what the "conservative" stations--and the Trump-controlled FCC does about it.

Ben B from Retired replied, September 22, 2025 at 11:25 p.m.

Sinclair has said they aren't going to air Jimmy Kimmel on their ABC TV stations saw the headline on AOL's homeage had to click on it to see who. In West Michigan they own WWMT CBS, Nexstar owns WOTV which is ABC and TEGNA owns WZZM ABC as well got 2 ABC stations. WOTV aired local News Thur & Fri from 11:30PM to 12:30AM, WZZM aired Family Feud.

I don't know if Nexstar will air Jimmy Kimmel or not haven't seen any headlines as yet or will be like Sinclair and say no their not going to air Kimmel either. I'm not into late night talk shows and don't watch Kimmel or anyone else just not into political I'd rather laugh and be entertained.