Group of Disney Shareholders Demand Info on Kimmel Suspension, Accuse Board of ‘Improper’ Political Motivations

AP Photo/John Raoux

A group of Disney shareholders represented by powerhouse litigator Roberta Kaplan has sent a letter to the company demanding documents related to the decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel Live!, alleging the company put “improper political or affiliate considerations above the best interests of the Company and its stockholders.”

Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show was indefinitely suspended by ABC after comments the comedian made about Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old charged with the murder of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.

“We hit some new lows over the weekend, with the MAGA gang 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,” said Kimmel on the Sept. 15 episode.

President Donald Trump and other Republicans lauded the suspension while Kimmel’s supporters denounced it as censorship, since it came in the aftermath of vociferous criticism from the president and comments from his Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr that his agency “can do this the easy way or the hard way” if companies don’t “find ways to change conduct and take action.”

On Monday, Disney announced that Jimmy Kimmel Live! would be returning on Tuesday, after “thoughtful conversations with Jimmy” about comments that “were ill-timed and thus insensitive,” but Nexstar and Sinclair announced they would not be airing Kimmel’s show on the dozens of local ABC affiliates that they own.

Kimmel’s first show back after his suspension drew 6.3 million viewers — even with 23% of American households not being able to watch on ABC because of the preemption by Nexstar and Sinclair — plus over 25 million views online.

According to a report by Semafor media editor Max Tani, several organizations including the American Federation of Teachers and Reporters Without Borders, Inc. retained Kaplan, who notably represented E. Jean Carroll in her successful litigation against President Donald Trump, to exercise their rights as shareholders to demand access to a corporations “books and records” under Delaware law, where Disney is incorporated.

The letter seeks access to the corporate records to determine if Disney’s top executives “did not properly discharge their fiduciary duties” when they suspended Kimmel — a move that measurably affected the shareholders by knocking more than $4 billion off the company’s market value, Tani noted. Disney was also subject to accusations it was weak on free speech issues and grumbling was spreading among Hollywood talent about refusing to work with the company if they threw Kimmel under the bus.

“Although we are pleased that ABC did the right thing and put Jimmy Kimmel back on the air last night, due to the Trump administration’s continued threats to free speech, including with respect to ABC, we are writing to seek transparency into the initial decision to suspend him and his show,” the text of the letter said. “There is a credible basis to suspect that the Board and executives may have breached their fiduciary duties of loyalty, care, and good faith by placing improper political or affiliate considerations above the best interests of the Company and its stockholders.”

The letter requests “any materials that estimate the effect of Kimmel’s suspension on Disney’s revenue, as well as documents that lay out how executives are supposed to make decisions around ‘politically sensitive programming,’” “copies of Disney’s agreements with affiliate networks Nexstar and Sinclair,” “emails between board members, including CEO Bob Iger,” and “any communications between the company and federal government or political organizations,” reported Tani.

The Delaware law allowing shareholders to request corporate records does have some limitations, mainly granting access to board of directors-related matters, and Tani commented that “[c]ommunications between, for example, Iger, Disney TV chief Dana Walden, and Kimmel would likely be off-limits, and aren’t sought by the group’s letter.”

The dispute, Tani noted, likely has broader implications than mere shareholder gripes with corporate management. Trump has taken an aggressively vocal stance against Kimmel and the Democracy Defenders Fund, a nonprofit founded by former Obama aide and anti-Trump Substack scribe Norm Eisen, helped organize the letter. The fact that a large company like Disney responded to pushback from customers, shareholders, and talent within days to return Kimmel to air is being celebrated on the left as a sign that — even with Republicans controlling the White House, the House and Senate, numerous key state legislatures, and GOP appointees holding a majority of Supreme Court seats — Trump’s power is not absolute.

As Greg Sargent wrote at The New Republic:

Trump-MAGA have basically been bluffing: Their overbearing threats and bluster are meant to snooker us into believing that the culture is lost, that Trump’s grip on it is unshakable, that mobilization is futile. For now, this episode has demonstrated precisely the opposite, and we shouldn’t let ourselves forget it.

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The post Group of Disney Shareholders Demand Info on Kimmel Suspension, Accuse Board of ‘Improper’ Political Motivations first appeared on Mediaite.