• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, 4 hours ago

You know what would be really great in the new year? President Trump turning his attention to people, places and things far away from the TV business.

Last week, the TV Blog inventoried the 2025 TV stories in which Trump was involved either directly or indirectly.

These included the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel, the cancellation (albeit, not until next spring) of Stephen Colbert on CBS, the BBC editing scandal, the demise of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Trump’s manipulations of the Paramount Skydance merger, the tumult at CBS News and on and on.

Among the tactics Trump employed were social-media screeds about journalists, networks and late-night comedians; threats to withhold broadcast license renewals and other regulatory approvals for business deals unless companies did his bidding; pushing baseless lawsuits; and in general, waging war on free speech.

In many ways, he was successful in his efforts to apply pressure that would have TV companies on edge over the monologues on their late-night shows or investigative stories coming up on long-running news-magazine shows.

Internet firebrand and CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss recently did just that -- yanked a “60 Minutes” story that may or may not have offended Trump because, in her judgement, it needed better journalism. Whatever.

Her hiring in the first place by Paramount CEO David Ellison was all part of a plan to create a news culture at CBS that, if not completely favorable to Trump, would not necessarily be unfavorable either.

Last September, Disney/ABC yanked Kimmel ultimately because they were afraid Trump would threaten the company’s broadcast licenses or retaliate in some other way for Kimmel’s statements in a monologue blaming MAGA conservatives for the murder of Charlie Kirk.

The statements were stupid, but the First Amendment gives Kimmel the right to say them anyway. Trump himself exercises his constitutional right to Free Speech in much the same way.

The same rights apply to all news media, although Trump is especially distracted by television.

Thanks to his continuous meddling and haranguing, the TV business is obsessed with him. They are either afraid of him, or he makes them so crazy that they throw journalistic standards and practices out the window, as when the BBC blatantly altered a piece of video to make Trump seem worse than he already was.

The point is this: Wouldn’t it be great if none of the upcoming year’s TV news stories have anything to do with Trump?

Wouldn’t it be something if suddenly he didn’t care one bit about who merges with who, or what Colbert said about him, or whether the network news shows are naughty or nice?

President Trump, please butt out. The ravings of Jimmy Kimmel are not worth your time or attention.

Besides, don’t you have anything better to do?