Looking at the text messages from Robinson it seems the hateful rhetoric Kirk used played a big role in getting him to take the action he did.
And again, whether Kimmel was correct or not about MAGA and Robinson, it in no way makes this action by ABC anything other than cowardly and bowing down to authoritarianism.
DJT and his minions have been gunning for Kimmel for a while. He has already said Fallon and Myers are next. I expect John Oliver, The Daily Show, and SNL will be silenced as well.
I expect Kimmel will apologize, or walk it back. But factual accuracy is an impossible standard for comedy. Even the New York Times prints a couple corrections a day.
As for excusing ABC, I don’t know if they are the chief villain. Dozens of NexStar stations were refusing to air Kimmel. And if ABC didn’t give in today, I’m thinking that there would have been additional red state (or red county) local stations joining in tomorrow.
A point of comparison would be how networks dealt with the racial demands of their southern affiliates in the 1950’s and early 1960’s. Supposedly, NBC gave in to demands to not renew The Nat King Cole Show. But I’ll bet the more common situation was where they self-censored anything racist affiliates would not like. If true, the big problem now is that they will not air the next Kimmel, and we will never know.
It won’t be South Park that capitulates: it will be the people who control the medium they air on.
Nexstar is the largest owner of television stations in the U.S. In New York State they own 5 ABC affiliates, 2 Fox, 2 NBC, 2 CBS, 4 CW, and even 2 MyTV. They can influence all the networks. Oh, and they also own NewsNation, as far right as Mike Lindell. The second largest is Sinclair, who is famously conservative and infamous for forcing all of its local news broadcasts to air identical segments, which are really conservative editorials. They each own a network affiliate in my city. Pretty soon all news will be right-wing news. No need even for government intervention or pressure. They’re doing it willingly. And most people won’t even notice.
I am looking forward to the lawsuit Kimmel is sure to file if he isn’t brought back on soon, though. And the one Trey Parker and Matt Stone will file if they billion-dollar contract with Paramount is canceled. Doncha just hate it when people have enough money to fight back?
Getting to the point where if a host says, “I’ve never heard of Charlie Kirk.” And thats all. Then, cancelled.
I don’t think MAGA makes any real claim to being “free speech absolutists”. They’re in favor for free speech for themselves but quite open about the fact that opposing views should be silenced without reference to the 1st amendment or any other traditions of democratic society.
Given that Parker and Stone just got a five-year, US$1.5B “play-or-pay” deal for South Park I don’t think they are going anywhere. Even if Paramount decides to censor them or shut down Comedy Central completely, they own their studio outright, and frankly it doesn’t take a lot of resources to do the kind of animations they produce.
Stranger
This Orwellian bit really needs emphasis.
I am getting really REALLY sick of right wing cancel culture, along with the stench of hypocrisy. I shudder to think of what’s next.
Also this from BBC News:
Nexstar is currently seeking FCC approval for its planned $6.2bn merger with Tegna.
All garbage. And have been for years.
Associated Press has a live feed of the outside of the Captain Theater where “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” is shot, and there is apparently one MAGAt out there yelling, “Jimmy Kimmel sucks! Fuck him anyway!”.
I’m guessing this history will call this the “Late Nite Putsch”? Who knew the end of American democracy was going to be so banal?
Stranger
Unbelievable and frightening comments for pro-firing on Kimmel reddit page:
There’s these— illogical leaps of fact and timeline— all kinds of misguided brain processes. I dunno.
I didn’t review any of what you linked to, but I think it’s worth bearing in mind that both China and Russia will benefit enormously by Americans going at each other hammer and tong. Both countries are very adept with loosing malevolent bot activity into our national bloodstream, and this time around, they would have the tacit blessings of the Trump people.
Any chance some – or even many – of those comments are promulgated from such sources?
Possibly. Due to the subject-flipping. The first three comments are addressing their misled info , hate of lefts, and Kimmel and actual fake news. 
“Given the trends in late night numbers in recent years, this was just an acceleration and was inevitable in a few years at most, in my opinion.”
response: “Who would want this guy representing their company. He sounded like an unhinged asshole in that clip”
Response: “That’s what I was thinking. Maybe the show was losing money, so they wanted some brownie points for shutting down a left-wing media host.”
WTFH??!?!
The “clip” the poster is referring to is the reference to the shooter being anything other than their own (MAGA), paraphrase.
A minor right-wing subreddit, one of more than 100,000 active channels. (That’s right, out of 4,000,000 created, only 2.5% are still active. Reddit is nothing more that a fat SDMB.) Go to a bigger subreddit like r/news or r/politics and you’ll see an order of magnitude more people defending Kimmel.
n.m.
Stranger
I don’t follow social media at all, the SDMB notwithstanding. So the only exposure I have to it is what is talked about here. I can’t help but notice that the reported presence of “haters” on social media does not appear to match the actual numbers of haters I observe in our local (not Sinclair) news.
There was a Charlie Kirk vigil held in my little town. It was reported that “300 to 600” people showed up to support it.
I put this against the 10,000 that showed up for our ‘No Kings’ rally.
It just seems disproportionate.
To be clear, and apologies, I was just pointing out the stupid. Not at all saying millions feel this way or anything.
Sorry if I gave the wrong impression! 
Not at all, and no need for an apology! I was just musing about possible alternative explanations for the heightened level of spewed hatred through these channels. It worked so well in 2015-16, no reason it couldn’t still work in 2025-26.
Uh, that is not a Jimmy Kimmel Reddit page.
This one is one of the most popular sites about Kimmel: Reddit - The heart of the internet