It was the wisecrack heard around the world. Jimmy Kimmel’s ill-timed joke about MAGA and their reaction to Charlie Kirk’s assassination got him canceled…for a week.
Disney/ABC put Kimmel back on the air on Sept 23rd. The comedian used his comeback monologue to empathize with his critics, saying there’s nothing funny about the murder of a young man for his political views. He’s right. Kirk’s assassination is a depressing sign of the dark and violent time that America is living through. Kimmel also cast his return as a victory for free speech, which it is.
But Disney’s decision has far less to do with free speech than it does with smart strategy. Whether it was an orchestrated move or just a seat-of-the-pants improvisation, what we witnessed was a masterclass in stakeholder management under extraordinary pressure. More than ever, that’s an essential skill for business leaders.
Every company needs to know who its stakeholders are, why they’re important, what they care about, and how to manage them. For Disney, that list includes government regulators, network affiliates, advertisers, audiences, employees, content creators, and shareholders.
And that’s in order of increasing importance.
The reality is that keeping Jimmy Kimmel off the air hurt Disney’s relationships with the people that matter most for its future success. And other stakeholders simply didn’t matter as much. Examining Disney’s situation can help shed light on our own.
Regulators: They Don’t Really Matter
The Kimmel Crisis blew up for Disney when the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, delivered his mob-boss style threat to ABC that the issue could be handled “the easy way or the hard way.” The suggestion was that the FCC might go after ABC’s broadcasting license.
Carr’s warning sounded alarming, but it’s toothless. The FCC’s greatest leverage is over affiliate licenses, not Disney itself. If the FCC tried pulling ABC’s licenses, it likely wouldn’t hold up in court. Moreover, the vast majority of Disney’s viewers watch their shows on cable or via streaming. The FCC has no power over those vehicles. So, despite all the noise created by Carr’s intervention, the FCC ranks at the bottom of Disney’s stakeholder list. It doesn’t have nearly as much influence over Disney’s future as it thinks.
Affiliates: They Matter, but Not Like You Think
Network affiliates like Nexstar Media and Sinclair Broadcasting have good reasons to appease the FCC. Their stations do come under regulatory purview. And Sinclair is well-known for having a strong pro-Trump agenda. Both Sinclair and Nexstar also have a series of sizable mergers planned. Putting Jimmy Kimmel back on the air may make it harder for them to complete those mergers, if only because a dissatisfied FCC may be loath to approve their deals.
But make no mistake: for Disney, that’s a good thing.
The more fragmented its affiliate landscape is, the stronger Disney’s market power. Consumer goods companies learned this lesson decades ago. Levi’s had lots of negotiating power with its channels when there were dozens of department stores. They have a lot less now that Amazon, Walmart, Target, and Macy’s are the only real games in town.
Advertisers: They’re on The Sidelines
Throughout the week, Disney advertisers largely kept silent. Most large companies have realized that there’s absolutely no upside in attracting the attention of the White House. And while they may have waded in on another issue, this was one kerfuffle they were happy to stay out of. It’s also notable that advertisers play a smaller role in Disney’s business than in other networks. Disney’s real money flows from theme parks, streaming services, and content licensing – none of which depend on advertising. On this issue, Disney could say Hakuna Matata.
Audiences: Past or Future?
In the decision to keep Jimmy Kimmel off the air or bring him back, there was no way to make every viewer happy. But here again, not all audiences matter equally.
Some of us still watch ABC via a broadcast antenna. Many of us have cable. But more and more of us rely on streaming services. Broadcast viewership has been declining precipitously since the pandemic. According to the most recent survey by the Pew Research Center, only 8% of adult Americans still rely exclusively on broadcast TV. Meanwhile, 83% of adults use some form of streamed content, most often Netflix, Amazon, or Disney. Nielsen reports that, since 2021, streaming usage has jumped 79% while broadcast TV viewing has shrunk by 21%.
Broadcast and cable viewers that are served by network affiliates aren’t particularly profitable, and they represent the past. And if you’re one of the holdouts who still has an antenna on your roof, you’re part of an audience that Disney can safely say goodbye to.
Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension enraged the younger, more affluent, more liberal viewers who’ve opted for streaming. In the days after the suspension, hashtags like #CancelDisneyPlus started trending online. Users shared screenshots of their cancellations. It got to the point where Disney’s system was so overloaded that its online cancellation page crashed.
These cancellations come at a particularly bad time for a streaming business that has only recently started to make money. After five years of losing cash, Disney’s streaming business finally posted its first quarterly profit in 2024. Losing these hard-won subscribers would have rightly rang alarm bells in Burbank. Streaming is a growing (and global!) business. Disney needed to focus on protecting its future revenue streams, rather than shielding its legacy broadcasting services.
Employees: The Culture That Pushes Back
And then there are the people who work for you. Or maybe you work for them? Union strikes aside, American employees have been a historically pliant bunch. That, too, has been shifting in recent years. Disney’s employees have been notoriously outspoken when they’ve thought the Mouse was betraying their values. It was Disney employees who pressured the company to oppose Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law restricting discussion of sexual orientation in schools. While its employees didn’t join the Kimmel backlash in an organized way, Disney knows its cast members are overwhelmingly liberal and progressive. The company needed to keep them on its side.
Content Creators: Talent Disney Can’t Afford To Lose
Another vital stakeholder group that vented its displeasure was content creators. This culminated in more than 400 Hollywood stars, including Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, and Tom Hanks, signing an open letter condemning Kimmel’s suspension. Creators’ satisfaction is crucial to producing the movies and shows that Disney needs to compete in a crowded streaming landscape. And they can take their talents elsewhere.
Shareholders: The Final Word on Growth
And then there are the owners. Disney saw nearly $4 billion shaved off its market cap in the days following Kimmel’s suspension. Several major investors asked Disney to share internal documents on the suspicion that it bowed to political pressure rather than acting in shareholders’ best interests. Investors will be the first to punish Disney if it falters in laying out a convincing path to future growth and profitability.
For Disney, there’s far more enterprise value in being a studio than in being a network. It’s the content engine that differentiates Disney’s intellectual property. IP fuels the growth of its streaming services. IP boosts franchising opportunities and merchandise sales. And IP draws more visitors to its theme parks. The Mandalorian matters a lot more than Brendan Carr.
To be sure, no company wants extra attention from the White House. This week it’s Kimmel, next week it’s the parks. But Disney’s business is bigger than any one administration. Global, younger audiences and premier content creators are Disney’s future, and investors know that.
A Strategy to Focus on What Matters
In an ideal world, Disney would have had a game plan for just this kind of situation. They would have listed out their stakeholders in advance. They would have clearly defined what each group needed and how to engage them. And they would have wargamed scenarios for what to do when a capricious and interventionist administration put Disney in their crosshairs. The wargame would have revealed that capitulation to the White House would harm Disney’s relationships with the stakeholders who matter most. By contrast, the stakeholder relations that stood to benefit from Disney caving were the least important to the company’s future growth. But recognizing the need to appease viewers of all stripes, Disney execs would have seen that the best tactic would be to pull the host for a week or two and then welcome him back.
All that probably didn’t happen.
Decision-making about Jimmy Kimmel likely didn’t start until the moment of crisis. Disney is filled with lots of smart people, but they’re like the rest of us–struggling to keep our heads above water while we move from one issue to the next.
It doesn’t have to be that way. You can have a plan before you need one. And you can create a strategy that serves your long-term stakeholder interests rather than bending with the wind.
First, don’t fall into the trap of thinking that keeping your head down will protect you. Neutrality is no longer neutral. Every corporate decision gets interpreted through political and cultural lenses. The choice isn’t whether to engage, but how to do so strategically.
Second, map out your stakeholders, what they really want from you, and what you need from them. Disney’s approach worked because it prioritized stakeholders crucial to long-term value creation while managing the expectations of those representing legacy business models.
Third, wargame different crisis scenarios with your senior leaders before something blows up in real life. Knowing that a culture-war flashpoint was a growing risk under this administration, Disney should have wargamed a scenario similar to the Kimmel drama.
Fourth, get a solid night’s sleep and look after your health and sanity. If you’re stressed out and multitasking while running on four hours of sleep, you won’t be ready to play the game of 3D chess that’s needed when serving your stakeholders.
Disney didn’t just bring back a late-night host. It showed what leadership looks like in a storm: pick the stakeholders who shape your future, take the hit from the rest, and keep your business pointed forward.