Kimmel Embroils Disney’s Iger in Culture Wars He Tried to Avoid

(Bloomberg) -- Since returning to lead Walt Disney Co. in 2022, Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger has tried to steer clear of the culture wars.

The company scaled back its diversity policies, scratched a transgender storyline from a cartoon, scrubbed a character’s queer identity from a kids movie and settled a lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump by donating to his future library. None of those moves met with widespread opposition.

But the decision to yank Jimmy Kimmel Live! from the air has catapulted Disney’s CEO into the center of a battle that reflects the country’s deep political divide. Its ABC late-night star Jimmy Kimmel triggered a firestorm of criticism this week with comments about the killing of activist Charlie Kirk. That led Trump and his top telecommunications regulator to threaten the company, saying its ABC stations could lose their broadcast licenses.

This time, Disney’s response has drawn rebukes from free-speech advocates, entertainers and supporters in the creative community. Protesters have picketed outside Disney’s headquarters in Burbank, California, and at the theater on Hollywood Boulevard where the show is taped.

“You can’t go around firing somebody because you’re fearful or trying to suck up to an authoritarian criminal administration in the Oval Office,” former late-night host David Letterman said Thursday at an event hosted by the Atlantic magazine. “That’s just not how this works.”

Representatives for Disney didn’t respond to requests for comment.

This wasn’t how Iger’s homecoming was supposed to go. He came back three years ago, in part to clean up similar problems created by his handpicked successor.

Bob Chapek angered Disney employees when he decided the media and theme-park company, a big employer in Florida, wouldn’t oppose legislation in the state limiting discussion of gender issues in public schools. He backtracked, but got into a long fight with Republican Governor Ron DeSantis. Disney lost control over a special district that’s home to its parks and hotels.

On his return, Iger took up the fight with DeSantis, but ultimately settled, agreeing later to invest up to $17 billion in its Florida operations over a decade.

The stakes are high this time, too. Iger’s adversaries are the president of the US and the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC’s Brendan Carr oversees regulation of the broadcast industry and has the power to block deals at a time when media companies are under financial pressure to consolidate and lower costs.

To Kimmel supporters, it’s all about free speech. At Change.org, a website where users can create and sign petitions on various social causes, 57,000 people backed Kimmel’s reinstatement. On the social media site Reddit, individuals were posting instructions on how to cancel Disney streaming services. The decision to suspend Kimmel has also upset Disney studio and corporate staff who see the move as an overreaction, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Disney’s former CEO, Michael Eisner, also voiced his disapproval in a post on X. 

Damon Lindelof, who created the hit show Lost for ABC, said on Instagram he was “shocked, saddened and infuriated” by Disney’s decision to suspend Kimmel. He said he looked forward to it being lifted and threatened to boycott company.

Iger may have seen trouble coming with the second Trump administration. In talks with fellow CEOs at an annual retreat in Sun Valley, Idaho, in August 2024, he expressed concern that the government would try to interfere with Disney operations, according to people with knowledge of the matter. 

A year earlier, he expressed concern about ideology creeping into movies and TV shows.

“We’ve recently gotten criticism as you just expressed for what some perceived to be agenda-driven content,” Iger said at Disney’s 2023 annual meeting. “And I’m sensitive to that actually. Our primary mission needs to be to entertain.”

Disney and Kimmel are in negotiations about how to resolve the suspension, according to people familiar with the matter. 

The company would like to return Kimmel to the air and has discussed the show’s future with him, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations.

The talks are complicated. Sinclair Inc., the largest owner of local TV stations affiliated with ABC, has called on Kimmel to publicly apologize and donate to Kirk’s family. Although Disney hasn’t asked him to, Kimmel has been reluctant to issue an apology, believing he didn’t say anything that would require it.

It’s a major test for Disney TV chief Dana Walden, who delivered the news to Kimmel after conferring with Iger. A lifelong TV executive, she has strong ties to former Vice President Kamala Harris and is competing to succeed Iger as CEO. 

In less politicized times, Kimmel’s remarks probably wouldn’t have generated the controversy they did today — nor the outsized response from his employer, according to Gabriel Rossman, a sociology professor at the University of California at Los Angeles. He specializes in radio and film.

“The indefinite suspension has to be viewed in the context of the declining business model of late-night talk in the face of audience fragmentation and cord-cutting, and an FCC and president who have aggressively threatened broadcasting licenses,” he said.

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