Commentary: Challenging Nexstar’s & Sinclair’s War On Kimmel

By Dennis Edwards
Columnist and Broadcast News Veteran

Seems the ABC Television Network has come to its senses on its Jimmy Kimmel debacle! His show returned Tuesday night (Sept. 23) at 11:35 on ABC stations and affiliates nationwide. 

However the ownership of roughly 50+ Nexstar and Sinclair-operated ABC TV stations have refused to air his return and subsequent late night broadcasts! They’re filling that time with their own sub-par, fundamentally irrelevant and distracting local programming.

In the Richmond, Va., and Washington, D.C.markets, that means you couldn’t see Kimmel’s return Tuesday on WRIC TV 8 and D.C.’s WJLA TV 7. A petty and childish move on Nexstar’s and Sinclair’s parts!

The fundamental truth here is that both companies are on the losing end of this Lost Cause, Confederate War-like last stand. Since both won’t run Kimmel’s return, none of their viewers, like you and me, have any obligation to watch any of their stations’ substitute and/or local news programming. Just move over to CBS’s The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. Continuing that kind of Nexstar/Sinclair boycott is appropriate for Democracy’s sake since the protection of Freedom of Speech is the Constitution’s life’s blood.

As I’ve written before, the viewers best and most effective weapon against this kind of Tyranny is to simply stop watching local news programming on all Sinclair and Nexstar TV stations nationwide.

Will that kind of boycott make a difference? I believe it already has and is.

Remember this information from the Pew Research Center about the power of what you choose to watch on TV.  “While the single, exact percentage of Black Americans who watch local TV news isn’t specified, Pew Research Center demographic data indicates Black Americans have a strong connection to local news and a higher preference for television as a news source compared to other racial and ethnic groups. For instance, 41% of Black adults say they get news from local outlets fairly or extremely often, and a 2019 study found Black Americans were twice as likely as white Americans to follow local news very closely.”

Combine those numbers with white, Hispanic and other racial demographic groups’ viewing patterns and it becomes clear viewers of all races can and should drastically affect both companies’ advertising revenue base and bottom line.

I’m shifting the focus of my boycott away from ABC’s programming to all of Nexstar’s and Sinclair’s local newscasts on Richmond’s WRIC-TV 8 and D.C.’s WJLA TV 7. You, too, can find the affiliates of both companies in your market and stop watching their local news. If they think so poorly of who we are, why should we support their bottom line?

Advertisement

Again, you, the viewer, have the final and most important say. If you have a Nexstar or Sinclair-owned TV Station in your market, just turn off all of their local news programming every night!  Do your part to remind them who really has their future in the palm of their hands. It comes with that TV remote that gets lost all the time! Just change the channel away from theirs and let them stew in their own misguided mean-spirited juices!

  Dennis Edwards is a Major Market Emmy and Virginia Associated Press Broadcasters Award Winning Television and Radio News Anchor, Investigative  Reporter, Editorial Page Columnist and Pastor. He is a graduate of Virginia Union University and its Samuel Dewitt Proctor School of Theology.