Back on ABC, Jimmy Kimmel Addresses His Show’s Suspension

Jimmy Kimmel on Tuesday night will break his silence on the controversy that temporarily sidelined his late-night show, amid a still-swirling storm of political and corporate standoffs.

The show will air on ABC at 11:35 p.m. Eastern.

Tuesday’s program is one of the most anticipated episodes of late-night television in years. ABC and Disney executives pulled “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” off the air last week after an uproar over the host’s comments about the suspected shooter of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.

Among the critics was the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, who suggested that his agency could take action against the network, setting off a debate about free speech.

What will Kimmel say?

It is not yet clear how Mr. Kimmel will approach his opening monologue on Tuesday. But he is expected to address the events of the last week in full.

His guests on Tuesday will be the actor Glen Powell and the singer Sarah McLachlan.

How to watch?

Not everyone in the country will be able to watch “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Tuesday. Two large station groups, Nexstar and Sinclair, said they would pre-empt episodes of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” from the ABC affiliates they own. Those two station groups represent a little more than 20 percent of ABC’s national reach combined.

Disney owns and operates the local affiliates in some of the country’s largest markets, including in the New York, Los Angeles and Chicago areas, which will air the episode. Other local television owners, including Hearst and Gray Media, will also air “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” as normal.

The episode will be available on Wednesday on Hulu as well as Hulu on Disney+.

Kimmel’s audience size

Mr. Kimmel’s show usually draws a nightly audience of 1.6 million viewers, according to Nielsen.

Television executives are anticipating that its viewership — even without a few dozen local stations — will be significantly higher on Tuesday.

The background

The longtime ABC star was sidelined last Wednesday, not long after Mr. Carr, a top Trump regulator, strongly criticized Mr. Kimmel for comments he made in the opening monologue of his Sept. 15 program. Mr. Carr suggested that the F.C.C. could take action against ABC and Disney, saying: “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

Mr. Kimmel had originally planned to address the imbroglio in his opening monologue on Sept. 17, just hours after Mr. Carr’s comments, but Disney executives decided to pull his show “indefinitely” instead. Executives were concerned that if his planned remarks aired that night he would risk inflaming the situation even further.

The suspension of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” quickly turned into a flashpoint about free speech in America. Liberals, and even some conservatives, said that the pressure Mr. Carr applied to ABC represented a chilling suppression of the First Amendment. Mr. Carr tried to minimize his role this week, saying that Disney had made “a business decision,” and that accusations of suppression of free speech were part of “a campaign of projection and distortion.”

On Sept. 15, Mr. Kimmel used his opening monologue to say that the “the MAGA gang” was “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”

It took about a day for his comments to gain steam on social media but, once it did, conservatives pounced. They said Mr. Kimmel had mischaracterized the political beliefs of Tyler Robinson, the accused shooter. Mr. Carr said that his comments were part of a “concerted effort to lie to the American people.”

Prosecutors have said that Mr. Robinson objected to Mr. Kirk’s “hatred,” but the authorities have not said which of Mr. Kirk’s views Mr. Robinson had found hateful. Mr. Robinson’s mother said that her son had recently shifted to the political left.