Will Jimmy Kimmel Be On Or Off Washington State TV Sets Tonight?

It's been a week for fans of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the host himself, and social media.  A week ago today it was announced that ABC affiliate TV station owners Nexstar and Sinclair would pull the show off of their stations.

The reason was a false statement Kimmel made the night before regarding the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on the campus of Utah Valley University.  On the heels of those owners announcing they wouldn't air the late night show, ABC pulled the program indefinitely from all stations.

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Yesterday, ABC said the hiatus for Jimmy Kimmel Live! would end tonight (September 23rd).  Sinclair and Nexstar have both said since that announcement they will continue to keep Kimmel show off of their ABC affiliate stations.  It's a lot of on again off again that may leave fans of the show in Washington State wondering exactly what that means for them.

Not All Washington State TV Sets Will See The Return Of Jimmy Kimmel Live!

ABC has 242 affiliate stations around the United States.  The American Broadcasting Company owns and operates only 8 of those stations.  Of the remaining 234, Sinclair and Nexstar own a combined 73 affiliates making them the two largest owners (Sinclair with 41 is the largest, Nexstar owns 32) of ABC stations in the US.

Only one of those stations is in Washington State.  Sinclair owns four TV stations in the Evergreen State overall, three of them are CBS affiliates.   They are KEPR in Tri-Cities and KIMA in Yakima.  Their only ABC affiliate is KOMO in the Seattle-Tacoma market and it will not carry Jimmy Kimmel Live! tonight, or for the foreseeable future.

The ABC affiliates in Tri-Cities (KVEW), Yakima (KAPP), and Spokane (KXLY) are owned by Wisconsin based Morgan Murphy Media.  Morgan Murphy has not said the program won't air on it's stations, so it's a safe bet that the late night host will be seen in those markets.

Nexstar doesn't own any TV station in Washington State at this time, but they are in talks to acquire TEGNA which owns KING and KONG (both NBC) in Seattle as well as KREM (CBS) and KSKN (CW) in Spokane.