Kimmel Ratings

[davideduardo]

I guess Scott did a better job of straightening you out than I did.🤣🤣🤣

I spent several decades in the belly of the broadcast TV beast, but got out before revenue started collapsing and retrans fees went bonkers.💸💸💸 Very different world today.

My most recent TV experience was with the GM of one of the only two channel aggregators” in the Palm Springs market. The real concern was that over half the revenue comes from cable fees, and with cable declining the ability to do things like local news was in jeopardy.

 

[yeoldeschool]

My most recent TV experience was with the GM of one of the only two channel aggregators” in the Palm Springs market. The real concern was that over half the revenue comes from cable fees, and with cable declining the ability to do things like local news was in jeopardy.

Which explains why those fees have risen to as much as $50/month in some areas.

 

[K.M. Richards]

Which explains why those fees have risen to as much as $50/month in some areas.

So now the question becomes, with cable subscription numbers falling and the cable systems scrambling to stay afloat, how much longer will they pay those higher fees, and how will the trickle down effect impact the station operators?

Anyone who wants to know why television stations are all pushing their apps so hard during their newscasts needs only to look at this reality. Viewing is not just moving away from cable, it is moving away from OTA as well, but it's moving away from cable faster, since a lot of cord-cutters are using OTA and have not yet migrated to watching their local station's newscasts on their phone.

We have already seen cable systems downplay video in their bundles. They are more focused now on home phone, wireless, and broadband. Some smaller cable systems have already stopped providing video service and have become purely ISPs. And there is now an early indication that even that will not be the primary focus going forward: Spectrum/Charter is running ads -- often enough and on every station in the market to be called ubiquitous -- offering free lifetime home Internet if you keep four lines of wireless service with them. That's got to look attractive to families where mom, dad, and every one of the kids has their own phone and number. (We probably aren't far from a promotion where the family dog or cat will have its own number as well.)

The industry keeps changing, and at the rate it's going, it won't matter whether or not the NAB succeeds in forcing OTA television to the ATSC 3.0 standard ... there won't be any OTA viewers left to take advantage of it. I wouldn't be surprised if someday the stations on UHF channels will be allowed to offer wireless service themselves, with OTA television itself relegated to a bunch of LPTVs on channels 2 through 13.

 

[TheBigA]

The FCC's Chairman Carr was grilled in the senate about Jimmy Kimmel, so Kimmel himself had comments about it:

Kimmel brushes off FCC Chair Brendan Carr's Senate grilling, laments no one was held 'accountable'

Jimmy Kimmel dismissed the Senate hearing about FCC Chair Brendan Carr's threats against ABC, joking it aired on C-SPAN3 and was completely ineffective.

www.foxnews.com

 

[ted chittenden]

The FCC's Chairman Carr was grilled in the senate about Jimmy Kimmel, so Kimmel himself had comments about it:

Kimmel brushes off FCC Chair Brendan Carr's Senate grilling, laments no one was held 'accountable'

Jimmy Kimmel dismissed the Senate hearing about FCC Chair Brendan Carr's threats against ABC, joking it aired on C-SPAN3 and was completely ineffective.

www.foxnews.com

Interesting. Liberal talk show host Thom Hartmann noted on his first monologue today (this was a side note as the monologue dealt mainly with Trump's "emergency" speech last night) that during that same Senate hearing, one of the Democratic senators (I forget which one) kept pushing Mr. Carr on whether the FCC was still considered an independent agency, as Congress had created it to be. Mr. Carr hemmed and hawed and never gave a full answer. Then the Democratic senator (per Mr. Hartmann) pointed to the FCC's website which stated that the FCC was an independent agency. Within minutes, that description was removed from the FCC's website.

I'm going to go a little further on this tangent. On the day that the Rebecca Slaughter case went in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, NPR asked a former Trump lawyer (who still supported him) about the claim that the FTC was an independent agency, and his direct response was, "There is no such thing as an independent government agency." Hearing that reminded me of another quote made by the late railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt back in the late 1800s. That quote was something to the effect of "There is no such thing as a public interest, only the interest of specific individuals." It very much strikes me that the current Federal Administration is thinking along the same lines about government agencies, including the FCC.

 

[K.M. Richards]

Let's look to the future. How long is it going to take for us to undo this mess once the idiot-in-chief leaves?

Getting the FCC back to normal is going to be a monumental task all by itself.

 

[Larry]

How long is it going to take for us to undo this mess once the idiot-in-chief leaves?

I hope some people (good government watchdogs, politicians, political parties) are keeping a list of everything that needs to be undone. Unfortunately some things can’t be undone (eg demolishing East Wing, court rulings) can’t easily be undone.

 

[TheBigA]

I'm going to go a little further on this tangent. On the day that the Rebecca Slaughter case went in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, NPR asked a former Trump lawyer (who still supported him) about the claim that the FTC was an independent agency, and his direct response was, "There is no such thing as an independent government agency."

There's a school of thought about the presidency that everything in his branch is under his control. But that's not how the agencies were set up. They report to congress. Why? Because congress represents the people, not the president. But this president believes HE, not congress, represents the people. To him, these agencies all report to him, not congress, and therefore he can fire them as though they were contestants on his TV show.

This isn't conservative thought. Conservatives through the history of this country believed in limiting presidential authority. The liberals want to give the president the power to do anything. The agencies such as the FCC are considered independent because we don't want the president to control the media. That's what he wants to do, and this FCC wants to give him that authority. But I promise you, if a liberal ever becomes president, the conservatives are not going to give them the latitude they're giving this president.

Going back to the constitution, it gives the president the power to appoint, with approval of the senate. Nowhere does it say anything about the power to fire, except for crimes. People he appoints are there for 5 year terms, so they last through administrations. None of the people he wants to fire have committed any crimes, other than being appointed by Biden. The way to fire is kick it back to congress via impeachment. That's in the constitution. This should be a simple case, but of course it's not.

 

[yeoldeschool]

Apparently $50/month wasn't good enough.

Now they want 50% more:

Local ABC, CBS, FOX, & NBC Stations Are Demanding Up to a 50% Price Hike for Cable TV Customers | Cord Cutters News

Optimum, a major broadband and TV provider, has publicly denounced demands from broadcast company TEGNA for sharp rises in carriage fees today. The rejection, announced on December 16, 2025, highlights escalating tensions in the media industry over pricing models that could lead to higher bills...

cordcuttersnews.com

This is completely unsustainable. Even $10/month was outrageous for free television. Things hitting the $20 to $50/month range is beyond tolerable and hiking even that by 50% basically equals suicide.

At this rate, if Netflix can swallow a heritage film studio, Youtube will begin buying up the smoldering carcasses of our local TV affiliates and converting their schedules over to 24/7 linearized jukeboxes of the site's trending videos categories. KCBS-2? All "My Morning Routine" videos. KNBC-4? All "[some influencer] reacts to [some viral tripe]" videos. Ad nauseam.

And I won't care, as long as their news operations remain in tact, and the diginets keep chugging along with their classic television reruns o' plenty.

 

[ted chittenden]

There's a school of thought about the presidency that everything in his branch is under his control. But that's not how the agencies were set up. They report to congress. Why? Because congress represents the people, not the president. But this president believes HE, not congress, represents the people. To him, these agencies all report to him, not congress, and therefore he can fire them as though they were contestants on his TV show.

This isn't conservative thought. Conservatives through the history of this country believed in limiting presidential authority. The liberals want to give the president the power to do anything. The agencies such as the FCC are considered independent because we don't want the president to control the media. That's what he wants to do, and this FCC wants to give him that authority. But I promise you, if a liberal ever becomes president, the conservatives are not going to give them the latitude they're giving this president.

Going back to the constitution, it gives the president the power to appoint, with approval of the senate. Nowhere does it say anything about the power to fire, except for crimes. People he appoints are there for 5 year terms, so they last through administrations. None of the people he wants to fire have committed any crimes, other than being appointed by Biden. The way to fire is kick it back to congress via impeachment. That's in the constitution. This should be a simple case, but of course it's not.

Your hypothesis is exactly what the Slaughter case is all about. If she loses (and from the questions raised by the conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court it is pretty certain that she will) then that hypothesis is entirely out the window.

 

[TheBigA]

Your hypothesis is exactly what the Slaughter case is all about. If she loses (and from the questions raised by the conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court it is pretty certain that she will) then that hypothesis is entirely out the window.

There are extenuating circumstances with the FCC in terms of a 1st amendment challenge. So I wouldn't interpret any ruling as final.

The other thing is if he gets the power to fire, so will subsequent presidents. Just like Biden has presidential immunity.