Why is Jimmy Kimmel returning to ABC, what did his suspension cost Disney?

Jimmy Kimmel will go back on air after his late-night show was pulled last week, Disney-owned broadcaster ABC announced on Monday.

Kimmel’s show is set to return on Tuesday night, after a weeklong impasse during which ABC faced backlash over its decision to cancel it, and close to $5bn was wiped from Disney’s stock market value.

The Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC, said in a statement on Monday that Kimmel’s show had been indefinitely pulled off the air on September 17 to avoid escalating tensions during an “emotional moment for our country”.

“It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive.”

The statement added further: “We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”

Experts say Disney’s decision to bring Kimmel’s show back on air was probably motivated by business interests, since many consumers were ending their subscriptions to Disney’s streaming services.

“Consumers were exercising their own First Amendment rights and ending their subscriptions to the company’s streaming services,” Susan Campbell, a media studies professor at the University of New Haven in Connecticut, told the Reuters news agency.