For the years I lived in New York, I always had visiting Kiwis crashing on my couch. And more often than not, when they came to town and were listing off the things they wanted to do in the Big Apple, they’d make it a priority to try and get into the audience at one of late shows.
I went to Letterman and Colbert. I actually bumped into Jimmy Fallon at his studio when I interviewed the leader of his band for this show.
Back then, just a decade ago, late night hosts were more than mega-stars. Their shows were institutions. Even with social media, it felt like their programmes or versions of them were set to exist in some form for decades to come.
How quickly things change.
I really love the US, but Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension feels like another little moment in which we are watching a superpower destroy itself in real time.
To be clear, I’m not a huge fan of Jimmy Kimmel. He’s fine I guess, but I wouldn’t seek him out. I thought his comments about Charlie Kirk’s assassination were pretty distasteful. But they were flippant, passing comments, that were clearly the opinion of a comedian. And to see the head of the Federal Communications Commission react by threatening broadcasters for airing Kimmel’s show was extraordinary.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” he said. Yeesh.
First, there’s the hypocrisy. It’s only a few months since Vice-President JD Vance told the Munich Security Conference this:
“I believe that dismissing people, dismissing their concerns or, worse yet, shutting down media… protects nothing. In fact, it is the most sure-fire way to destroy democracy.”
Interesting. Now his government agency is threatening to remove the broadcasting licenses of companies who broadcast views they don’t like. ‘Cos nothing honours the memory of a proud free speech advocate who was literally murdered while speaking, by actively suppressing, limiting, and punishing the speech of his critics.
Perhaps even more remarkable is the way in which these media companies are routinely capitulating.
On multiple occasions now, big corporates have wilted under pressure in order to try and curry favour with the President and protect their business interests. Paramount and CBS capitulated with his 60 Minutes complaint. Just two weeks later, they fired Stephen Colbert, the best comedian on late night and a frequent brutal critic of the President. And for now, at least, Kimmel is gone too.
It’s interesting to compare the ways in which media companies have dealt with pressure from the White House and the ways other countries have dealt with the US tariffs. It’s pretty similar. Instead of organising a collective response, grouping together with a collective resistance to the pressure, the big acronyms, the likes of CBS and ABC are acting in what they think is their own self-interest. They cut a deal and try to move on. Whether they’re international leaders or media executives, everyone is stooping to kiss the ring.
But is there any evidence it works? If you give a bully your lunch money, does he leave you alone thereafter? Or does he come back for more? They think it’s in their self-interest to acquiesce, but one capitulation leads to another, and another... it snowballs, and before you know it, the President of the United States is deciding which comedians are allowed on TV.
He now says some networks that are critical of him should have their licenses taken away. Like everything, it’s hard to know it it’s a serious idea. But the mere suggestion is so profoundly un-democratic, so profoundly un-American.
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5 min