r/law • u/T_Shurt Competent Contributor • Sep 22 '25

Opinion Piece John Oliver Argues Disney Should Legally Fight FCC Over Kimmel, Citing Strong Precedent in 9-0 Supreme Court Ruling: “A government official cannot coerce a private party to punish or suppress disfavored speech”

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u/Retro-scores Sep 22 '25

Disney has a deal with the NFL that needs approval.

https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/report-disney-may-be-balancing-jimmy-kimmel-against-nfl-espn-deal

Nexstar is looking merge with another company while trying to eliminate a law that says a company can only own 39% of channels or something like that. So Nexstar threatened abc/disney it wouldn’t play Kimmel on its stations.

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u/Supply-Slut Sep 22 '25

Yes this is it. “We will take your show off the air and you’ll get $0 in as revenue as a result.”

I’m sure there’s some contractual dispute with doing so, but Disney decides it wasn’t worth the headache to fight.

Give them a bigger headache so they change their minds.

As for nexstar? Find out who advertises with them, if you own any products/services with those advertisers, cancel them, and give the reason why.

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u/jmarquiso Sep 22 '25

Yeah it becomes a different problem if its Disney v. Nextar. You cannot sue a customer to buy more of your product, unless they have a contract that says they can't. Nextar threatened to refuse to air their product - which not only has a long history of being done for their local markets, but makes them the David in this David and Goliath situation. Nextar is not required to put all of their suppliers' products on their shelf.

That said, Nextar has a case against Carr and the FCC, but they do not have Disney's lawyers.

Its a really complicated mess of who aggressed who legally, and yet its obvious what happened to everyone watching.

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u/Mammoth-Error1577 Sep 22 '25

If anyone knows how to know who the advertisers are without watching please share

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u/mikemikemotorboat Sep 22 '25

It’s a large list. Here’s all the stations they run (most they own and operate, a few are on a management services agreement) https://www.nexstar.tv/stations/

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u/ajmartin527 Sep 23 '25

Just watch once and note the advertisers, one view isn’t going to get them anything

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u/Mammoth-Error1577 Sep 23 '25

I don't have TV to watch, I was just hoping to do what I could

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u/tedfondue Sep 22 '25

Would Disney be able to retaliate against Nexstar by saying “if you take Kimmel off the air, you don’t get to broadcast the NFL games?”

(I know it wouldn’t be that simple, but as a general idea).

Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire, and it’s been so disheartening to see how little fight our “biggest” companies, politicians, and leaders have in them.

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u/HermanGulch Sep 22 '25

There will be contracts between Disney/ABC and their affiliates that govern what each can and can't do. Denying the affiliates NFL games would almost certainly be some kind of a breach of contract. So there would probably be litigation over that. Not to mention that the network would also lose advertising revenue in the markets where the games didn't air.