I really don’t understand this argument that he wasn’t popular as if that’s at all relevant. Aside from the cost of putting the legion of attorneys protecting a show that’s not bringing enough revenue and the fact, there’s a broader risk with the Nexstar merger that requires explicit government approval that the FCC also threatened.

More importantly, his viewership didn’t suddenly change and the cancellation came about pretty clearly as a result of the FCC threat and not any business decision the company would have made otherwise. Not a lawyer but I would think that Kimmel has a 1a lawsuit he could bring against DIS and the government.

He was last averaging 220K in 18-49 demographic. That beat out Colbert (barely) and trounced Fallon.

https://latenighter.com/news/ratings/late-night-tv-ratings-q...

If he was averaging suppoosedly bad numbers, why wasn't he fired before? Just a pure coincidence?

I'm not sure if you think people are extremely gullible, because one would have to be in order to buy that line.

If there's a threat going on, and an another excuse the threatened can blame, the threat is no less potent.