Good riddance: Kimmel’s ouster isn’t about free speech, it’s about the free market
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Not long ago, the following “journalists” had prominent positions in legacy media: Don Lemon, John Harwood, Jim Acosta, Chris Cillizza, Chuck Todd, Joy Reid, Tiffany Cross, Terry Moran, Jen Rubin, Glenn Kessler, and Taylor Lorenz.
Thankfully, the list has expanded to late-night “comedy” as well. Over at CBS, Stephen Colbert was informed his show will mercifully end next year. And at ABC on Wednesday, Jimmy Kimmel was abruptly pulled from its lineup in favor of Celebrity Family Feud, hosted by the actually funny Steve Harvey.
You’re going to see lots of analysis on Friday and over the weekend from the usual left-wing pundits insisting that Colbert and Kimmel are gone because of an attack on free speech from an authoritarian Trump administration. What is purposely omitted seemingly every time is the cold, hard fact that both hosts were losing tens of millions of dollars per year for their respective networks.
The late-night business model is simply and hopelessly broken. In Colbert’s case, his program costs $140 million per year to produce, which makes zero sense considering 90% of the show involves two people talking to each other across a desk. Kimmel’s situation is similar, not to mention the fact that both men were getting paid more than $15 million per year.
The final straw moment for Kimmel came earlier this week when he told a despicable lie about the man accused of fatally shooting Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10 at Utah Valley........
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