3 takeaways from Jimmy Kimmel's suspension by ABC

ABC pulled "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" Wednesday, or in the network's words, he "will be suspended indefinitely," following comments the host made on Monday's episode regarding Charlie Kirk. Here are three takeaways:

Will 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' return?

The word "indefinitely" certainly has a chill about it, or at least an ambiguity that could be interpreted as "shortly" or (worst case) "never." But it's important to point out that this isn't the same word as "cancel," which will happen to "Late Show With Stephen Colbert" next May. The Wall Street Journal, citing a "person familiar with the situation," said there's a "path" for Kimmel's show to return "in the next several days." What that path is is unclear, although Kimmel is still under contract through May. A group of ABC affiliates dropped the show this week but there are other key issues here besides affiliate defections, including the overall deterioration in the financial picture for all of late-night TV. For example, have advertisers threatened to boycott the comedian's show, which would be another pressure point on ABC?

A little history might offer some perspective here: In late September 2001, Bill Maher, host of ABC's 12:05 a.m. show, "Politically Incorrect," was forced to walk back comments that implied the U.S. military had been "cowardly" in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks. The damage, however, was done. Advertisers bailed, and the show was canceled the following May. Maher was replaced by — guesses, anyone? — Jimmy Kimmel. The long-term future for "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" now looks similarly bleak but maybe not so bleak for the host. If (as some news reports Thursday indicated) Kimmel tries to get out of his contract, there's always the streaming world. After ABC dropped Maher, he went to HBO, where he remains.

What about Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers and Jon Stewart?

Besides Kimmel and Colbert, President Donald Trump has had a long, bitter feud with these three. They're also part of the entertainment-industrial complex, which has business in Washington too. As such, they could also be affected by what many critics have called a TV chilling effect — the examples most often cited are those Disney and Paramount multimillion-dollar payouts to settle Trump lawsuits. Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said on Fox News Wednesday that late-night shows are bound by "a very narrow political ideology" and are "running a narrow partisan circus — whatever the public interest means — it’s not that." He threatened to examine ABC licenses after Kimmel's comments. And Trump later posted on Truth Social that Fallon and Meyers should be next.

What are these huge affiliate groups that bailed on 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!'?

This week, the nation's two largest TV station groups, Nexstar (201 stations) and Sinclair (185), said they would drop Kimmel's show. Nexstar — which is in talks to buy another major operator, Tegna — owns 32 ABC affiliates, including WJLS in Chicago, and Sinclair owns around the same number of ABC stations (including WJLA in Washington, D.C.). They represent about a quarter of all ABC stations — a significant hit to "Kimmel" ratings. If ABC does indeed see a "path" for Kimmel's return, does it also see a path for the return of both affiliate bodies? That's a big question here too, because if they don't come back into the fold, the future of ABC's long-running late-night franchise is in real trouble.