Without claiming any credit from sending this letter, I see Disney’s caved to, well, probably their customer base, according to The Hollywood Reporter:
Jimmy Kimmel is getting back on the air. …
“Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country,” ABC parent The Walt Disney Co. said in a statement Monday. “It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive. We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”
I’ve seen reports of Disney’s customers canceling subscriptions in droves, but nothing official. And, if true, it’d be disappointing that it was the clompclompclomp of customer feet that drove them to retract an action plausibly, but not officially acknowledged, taken in response to FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr’s remarks, rather than principle. But at least it least it happened.
There’s more to this story. Let me clarify that Disney, Paramount, Artists United, all of these studios and news sources and whathaveyou, exist because of principle, a principle embedded in the First Amendment of the United States that defines and defends the right to speech uninhibited by government, whether it be speech or press. The symmetrical part of that principle is that those who benefit from it, Disney, et al, must also defend it when someone tries to take advantage of their governmental position to inhibit that speech. Why? For the thoroughly practical reason that most, even all of them cannot continue to exist if that principle ceases to be applied. When your existence depends on whim, you don’t exist, you merely survive – if lucky.
The next question, then, is the next move by Skydance, who bought ABC, parent to The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. Will they, too, rescind the impending closure of The Late Show? Or are they not as vulnerable to customer desertion as Disney? And how loudly will Erick Erickson scream if the closure is rescinded? He was rather certain it was all about the losses ABC was allegedly suffering at the time. Too bad I can’t find the post in question.
