A lot of things can be true at the same time:
- The FCC shouldn't be involved in content moderation, and the FCC Chair is obviously on an authoritarian power trip.
- What Kimmel said was wrong (assuming you believe Utah state investigators) and deeply irresponsible and inflammatory.
- Clearly the market was already deciding that Kimmel's show is irrelevant (Nielsen ratings quite clear on that).
- The FCC is only involved in content because of how TV broadcasting worked ~50 years ago (large swaths of RF spectrum allocated to certain license holders, only a few channels -could- exist due to technical reasons, thus fairness rules).
- ABC's distributors threatened to stop airing the network, which is what actually caused Disney/ABC to act, it's hard to say what impact the FCC Chairs comments actually had.
- The idea that the FCC needs to act to protect the TV Broadcasting systems is ridiculous, just let it all die, we're very far past the "public square" era of media.
- Had the FCC made no comment, and Disney pulled the show due to the distributors actions, it would have obviously just been "cancel culture but from the right", instead Brendan Carr wants to get in the headlines and so here we are.
It's all a perfect Scissor Statement. You can absolutely not care about Kimmel, you can think the FCC's TV licensing scheme is pointless and outdated, you can be 0% surprised Disney only cares about money and Carr is an idiot, and still you can get into a heated argument about this stuff. My own mother texted me "Free speech is dead" and hurah, now I get to do 3 hours of reading to say "it never really existed in broadcast television and also yes, this is bad, but not nearly as bad as you think" and boom now I'm the fascist.
"Sort by Controversial" is such a troubling timeline.