BULLETIN: BOB IGER, ABC AND DISNEY FOLD TO FASCISTS, SUSPEND KIMMEL - 9.17.25

Summary

Countdown with Keith Olbermann

Episode: BULLETIN: BOB IGER, ABC AND DISNEY FOLD TO FASCISTS, SUSPEND KIMMEL

Date: September 18, 2025
Host: Keith Olbermann

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Episode Overview

In this urgent episode, Keith Olbermann reacts with visible anger and disappointment to the breaking news that Bob Iger, ABC, and Disney have suspended Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show following pressure from right-wing interests and local station owners. Olbermann explores the implications of this decision for freedom of speech, television economics, and the role of corporate leadership in defending democratic values. Drawing on his own history in TV and a personal relationship with Bob Iger, Keith delivers a sobering analysis of how media, business, and politics have collided in what he decries as a capitulation to "fascist" forces.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Jimmy Kimmel Suspension

• Background: Jimmy Kimmel delivered a pointed monologue criticizing MAGA figures for their reaction to the murder of Charlie Kirk, which provoked controversy, especially among right-wing circles.
• Kimmel's Criticism:
  • Kimmel (as quoted by Olbermann): “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.” [02:36]
• ABC and Nexstar's Role: Nexstar, a major owner of local ABC affiliates, refused to air Kimmel, pressuring ABC to suspend the show immediately. Olbermann frames this as a pivotal moment of corporate and political acquiescence.

The Two Faces of Charlie Kirk

• Public Perception: There exists a divide between how the general public and right-wing groups perceive Charlie Kirk.
  • Olbermann: “One [set of video feeds] is seen by normal people… and another that is seen by ultra right wingers and Bible thumpers… So there are some people operating from a position of at least authenticity within their own world.” [03:47-04:25]
• Exploitation by Politicians: Olbermann accuses political figures of taking advantage of this bifurcated image to advance their own agendas. [04:30]

Economics of Late Night

• Declining Revenues: Olbermann asserts that financial viability, not just politics, is gutting late-night TV:
  • “These shows are not making money. The whole genre is dying. The audiences under 50, under 30... are leaving in droves.” [05:06-05:24]
• Colbert’s Precarious Position: CBS’s earlier decision regarding Stephen Colbert was, in Olbermann's view, 99% about finances, not politics, portending similar threats to other late-night hosts. [04:50, 05:00]

The Precedent of Media Repression

• Comparison to Nazi Germany: Olbermann draws an explicit analogy between current FCC commissioner Brendan Carr’s threats and Joseph Goebbels’ methods in early Nazi Germany:
  • “Brendan Goebbels Carr did something that is quite literally exactly something that Goebbels did in the early years of Nazi Germany... He silenced all criticism by taking the broadcasting companies.” [06:07-06:37]
• FCC and Licensing Threats: The threat to pull local broadcasting licenses is dissected as the real pressure point, even though national networks operate differently under FCC rules. [06:37-07:47]

Bob Iger's Leadership and Legacy

• Personal Betrayal and Critique: Olbermann, referencing his long-standing personal respect for Bob Iger, condemns Iger for betraying democratic values to protect his position:
  • “Bob Iger is a coward who values his job over democracy and ultimately values his job running Disney over America. He has just sold America out by taking Kimmel off the air till further notice. It is extraordinary.” [09:12-09:27]
• Corporate Vulnerability and Blackmail: Iger’s comeback and personal vulnerabilities are explored as factors making him susceptible to right-wing pressure:
  • “Bob Iger is the classic person who is vulnerable to professional blackmail… And so he Jay Leno’d this guy who succeeded him.” [07:47-09:12]

Legal and Contractual Realities

• Why Kimmel Can’t Sue:
  • Olbermann explains, referencing his own contract history, that most TV contracts are “pay or play”:
    • “All television contracts are pay or play. All the company has to do is pay you. They don’t have to play you.” [13:37-14:01]
  • Kimmel will be paid out, but cannot force ABC to air his show or mount a lawsuit unless he is materially slandered.
• Personal Anecdote: Olbermann equates Kimmel's situation to his own departure from Fox in 2001, highlighting how companies leverage contract clauses to suppress dissent while minimizing payouts. [14:18-15:41]

Media Courage and the Future

• Industry-wide Implications:
  • “The amount of courage and goodwill among the people who manage and own television operations in this country… it could fit into a thimble. And nobody knows that better right now than Jimmy Kimmel.” [18:58-19:14]
• Potential Fallout: Olbermann suggests mass resignations or public backlash are possible but deems them unlikely given economic pressures and management’s priorities. [17:53-18:58]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Two Realities:
  “This weird position we are in in which somebody can have two sets of video feeds. One is seen by normal people... another that is seen by ultra right wingers and Bible thumpers and religious nuts.” [03:47]
• On Bob Iger’s Decision:
  “Bob Iger is a coward who values his job over democracy and ultimately... over America. He has just sold America out by taking Kimmel off the air till further notice. It is extraordinary.” [09:12-09:27]
• On Legal Recourse:
  “All television contracts are pay or play. All the company has to do is pay you. They don't have to play you.” [13:37]
• On Media Courage:
  “The amount of courage and goodwill among the people who manage and own television operations in this country... it could fit into a thimble.” [18:58]

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Key Timestamps

• [02:36] Introduction of the Jimmy Kimmel controversy and his monologue
• [03:47-04:25] Discussion of divided public perceptions of Charlie Kirk
• [05:06-05:24] The economic death spiral of late night television
• [06:07-07:47] Brendan Carr, FCC, and Nazi Germany comparisons
• [09:12-09:27] Direct critique of Bob Iger’s legacy and complicity
• [13:37-14:01] Explanation of TV contract law and Kimmel’s position
• [18:58-19:14] Final thoughts on the lack of courage in media ownership

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Conclusion

Olbermann’s episode is a deeply personal, combustible indictment of how power, politics, and profit have conspired to silence one of late night’s last pointed critics of the MAGA movement. His analysis goes beyond surface scandal, exploring the intersection of cowardice, contractual shackles, and economic decline in American media. Through his unique blend of outrage, historical analogy, and insider anecdotes, Olbermann paints a bleak picture of the rapidly shrinking space for free, critical speech in network television.

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Transcript

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All right, I will try to tell.

You the Jimmy Kimmel story while suppressing my rage over it. On Monday night, Jimmy Kimmel in his program on ABC Late Night said, quote we hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it. There is some reason to think that to say Charlie Kirk's murder was anything other than one of them was a little broad. Otherwise that script could have gone into any newscast in America. It is that close to what has.

Proven to be true.

And that statement was made before the news conference explaining all of the correspondence between the alleged murderer and his girlfriend and the motivation for it. Yes, that's all they have done since Charlie Kirk died. And many of them are doing them, as I mentioned the other day, from a position of knowing only of the Charlie Kirk who was a Bible thumper. This weird position we are in in.

Which somebody can have two sets of video feeds.

One is seen by normal people, like presumably you and me, although I don't necessarily mean to speak for you, and another that is seen by ultra right wingers and Bible thumpers and religious nuts and people who would never have heard that cut that I played earlier of Charlie Kirk saying that Joe Biden should be executed.

They would only have heard the ones about stay in school and read your.

Bible and the family's most important, and.

They would never have seen the rest of it. So there are some people operating from.

A position of at least authenticity within their own world.

Then there are the politicians and the.

Political figures who know Charlie Kirk for what he was and are taking advantage of the fact that there are people who do not know what Charlie Kirk really was and the kind of filth that he put out every day, hour upon hour, in the guise of being the Bible thumper.

Jimmy Kimmel cut through that. In the wake of the cancellation of Stephen Colbert, I continue to maintain that CBS's decision about Colbert was actually almost 99% financial. These shows are not making money.

And just because you have the top.

Rated one does not mean you are.

Not losing money for your company. The whole genre is dying. The audiences under 50, under 30, from which these shows were springing and making.

All kinds of money, they are leaving in droves. The percentages in just the last 18 months.

I believe the audience number under 30 for Kimmel and for Colbert and for the NBC shows was now down 50%. It's not sustainable, however, the Kimmel move, in which they announced late yesterday that.

Kimmel was off the air effective immediately on the ABC network because a series of local stations owned by a company called nexstar, which has its own history of repression of freedom of speech, that those stations would not carry Kimmel and were pressuring ABC to drop or suspend the show. And ABC did this also late afternoon yesterday.

The man I referred to in the.

First segment, Brendan Carr, Brendan Goebbels. Carr did something that is quite literally exactly something that Goebbels did in the early years of Nazi Germany in his role as the media controller and chief propagandist for Adolf Hitler. He silenced all criticism by taking the broadcasting companies. In those days, almost all broadcasting in Germany was radio. He took all the private radio companies away from their owners. The few that maintained some kind of viability and also the newspapers. The few that maintained viability in Nazi Germany were the ones that never criticized the Nazis thereafter. That's what they want. Brandon Carr may have said something appropriate about the First Amendment, but of course he doesn't want the First Amendment to apply to private broadcasting because his argument was we can take the licenses away from abc. Abc, the network, the Jimmy Kimmel Show, FOX News Channel, all of cable. There are no licenses for them. There are licenses for the individual stations that ABC owns, that Fox owns, that CBS owns, that NBC owns. There are individual licenses and they can be challenged and they can be taken away from the owners, no matter who they are. Usually it's under the most dire and extraordinary of circumstances. I don't know the last time a license was actually taken away from an American TV license holder. Now the Trump administration, under this despot car, would take somebody's license away for being critical of Trump. There is no pretext being made anymore about why they would go after ABC licenses. The other reason they're going after ABC licenses is they know Bob Iger is now a collaborator. He is a quizzling. Bob Iger who stood up many times, not just for ABC News, for ABC Sports, for ESPN after Disney and ABC bought ESPN while I was there, stood up for me personally, has now abandoned all of that because Bob Iger is the classic person who is vulnerable to professional blackmail. Bob Iger retired as chairman of ABC and found that he no longer had anything to do. He wanted the power back. His successor was not who he thought he was. And he believed, and those around him believed too, that he was essential to the future success of Disney. And so he Jay Leno'd this guy who succeeded him. It is part and parcel of retirement. I have felt it too, watching people who succeeded me and gone, what the hell are they doing? Why did I leave? Why did I semi retire? Why did I go into this instead of saying there, Imagine when it's the level of finance of tens of millions of dollars in salary, hundreds of millions of dollars in value that people like Bob Iger make.

And so Bob Iger came back and Bob Iger is a man who wants the money and wants the job. And frankly, he is a coward who values his job over democracy and ultimately values his job running Disney over America. He has just sold America out by taking Kimmel off the air till further notice. It is extraordinary. I'm not utterly surprised. On Tuesday, Kimmel came back and said, many in Magaland are working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk. Yesterday, J.D. vance, who himself famously called Trump's America as Hitler, hosted the Charlie Kirk podcast from the White House where he pointed his little mascara stained finger directly at the left. And then they played the tape of Vance saying, most of the lunatics in American politics today are proud members of the far left. And Kimmel came back on and said, and by statistical fact he means complete bullshit. Again, probably wouldn't use the word bullshit in a newscast otherwise completely accurate and worthy of an inclusion on ABC World News. Let me explain to you why they did this again. Primarily, Iger did it to protect Iger to some degree. He did it to protect ABC. They already gave up $16 million to Trump as a bribe to keep them from suing further over the Stephanopoulos quotes about Trump and the Aegean Carroll case. So there's already a history there. They already knew Bob Iger was a soft target who could be blackmailed into doing what they wanted to. The Kimmel stuff, although it is factually verifiable, was still so pointed that it became an easy weapon to use against Iger. And no doubt there were phone calls made directly to people around Iger saying, we will go after your licenses, we will go after your theme parks, we will go after everything Disney has that's worth anything. Ironically, of course, the station licenses are probably the least valuable thing in the equation because local TV stations are not something you would want to invest in even if you were only investing $50. A local TV station is not a big deal anymore. The network properties, the syndication rights to shows on networks, the shows that networks produce or are involved in the production of, that's a different story. But the local stations, yeah, you're probably better off just affiliating your programs with independent stations that you do not own. Nevertheless, the implication here was we already bought you whore, Bala Iger, we are going to make you whore some more or we are coming after what we already told you was yours and we wouldn't come after again and Iger folded. It is shameful. It is the only thing he will be remembered for after a tremendous career, 50 years in broadcasting, As I said, personal relationship with me that dates back literally to before I went on the air professionally in 1979. Some of the greatest advice I have ever been given. I always had tremendous respect for him. And he made overtures again and again, offering me the opportunity to go back to ESPN after I left. Called when I was leaving, expressed his regrets, criticized the management beneath him, saying he didn't know I was about to leave. I had all the respect in the.

World for this man until the last year. Because there is nothing more dangerous than.

A man who retires and sees that the only thing next in his life is his own death, whenever that may come. So you have to go back and.

Reclaim your old job.

And once you reclaim it, you will kill to maintain it, metaphorically speaking. And what he just metaphorically killed was freedom of commentary in this country. Several people asked me in the wake of this announcement late last afternoon, early evening, can't Kimmel sue about this?

Isn't this obviously damage to Jimmy Kimmel.

And against the contract? And doesn't the contract say you're doing a show and you're being paid this much money?

All television contracts are pay or play. All the company has to do is pay you. They don't have to play you. So the roughly $16 million that Jimmy.

Kimmel is still owed in the 2025, 26 television season that just began and ends May, June, July of here, as.

Long as they pay him that money, he has no recourse.

If they do not absolutely slander him in any announcement about canceling the show or in any suspension of the show.

If they do not materially damage him, he has no recourse. He can only do one of two things. Take the money or come out and.

Slam ABC back and then probably forfeit.

The money because then they could fire him for cause. And I know this intimately because this is exactly what Fox did to me on a much smaller, smaller scale. Literally 1/20 size in 2001. Fox wanted me out. They were overspending on their cable sports.

Operation, and I was something like 40%.

Of the budget when I found that out. I sold my house because I knew the thing couldn't last much longer. But what Fox realized early in 2001 was they were paying me an inordinate amount of money for something that was not going to last much longer. And they needed to take a gamble. Yes, they owed me $100,000 a month.

For the remaining eight months of my.

Contract, but could probably piss me off enough that I would say something incredibly stupid and they could fire me for cause instead of paying me $800,000 to do nothing for the next eight months while I was free to look around.

And try to get a new job.

And then trash them once I got.

The new job and not before.

Bad call on their part.

On my worst day, I'm always going.

To take that $800,000 to do nothing and just save up all the terrible things I intended to say about Fox, which I have been saying nonstop since January 1, 2002. But it's exactly the same situation. There is nothing and there was nothing.

In my contract and there is nothing.

In Jimmy Kimmel's contract that says you.

Have to be on the air.

You do not have to be on the air, you only have to be paid. That's it. There are no other elements. Sometimes something can be twisted in such a way that you may be able to say to your employer, you took me off that show, you have breached my contract, you owe me all the money and I'm free to leave now, which also happened to me at NBC. But you really cannot force your way back onto a television show or onto a television network just because you have a contract. Your contract is to do the show. If they let you, their contract is to pay you whether you do the show or not. So no, there is no recourse for Jimmy Kimmel and there is evidently no recourse for America. ABC could have stood up, could have weathered the storm that would be coming, could have fought back, and unfortunately, as I explained earlier, of all times, for an egotistical old man holding on to his last remaining glory before death, for him to be in charge of a company like Disney, this is the worst for the purposes of freedom of press in America, freedom of comment, freedom of political expression, simply freedom. Bob Iger on the side of the devils, taking it out on America so he can maintain his power. I don't know how this turns out. Perhaps Bob will get some sort of inspiration from the realization that he's about to sell his country to the fascists and participate even further in that process. Perhaps the ABC people will all walk out. The problem, of course, is this. The same financial considerations that essentially made the Stephen Colbert Show a financial impossibility, certainly going forward will make the Jimmy Kimmel Show a financial impossibility. If they're not making money with the highest rated late night show, why would they be making money with the second highest rated show. And I know Kimmel disagrees with all of the finances and all of the accounting, and I understand that because I have said that before in the past. I happen to think in this case that part is legit. I will repeat, I believe, and it certainly isn't an indicator that Colbert was not fired for political reasons because Colbert is still on the air. Depending on what he says about Kimmel, perhaps they will try to fire him for cause at some point, but they have not done that yet and the schedule is for Colbert to continue into next year. The only thing, though, that CBS would be required to do into next year is pay Colbert, and there could be at any point in the next eight months or so the opportunity for them simply to take him off the air and hand him the cash. Sadly, that is the way commercial broadcasting works in this country. It is dependent on the goodwill and the courage of the people who run it. I can tell you, having now worked in television for 44 years, that the amount of courage and goodwill among the people who manage and own television operations in this country, news and otherwise, it could fit into a thimble. And nobody knows that better right now than Jimmy Kimmel.

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America is changing and so is the world.

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