If you’re a Rhode Islander who planned to tune into Jimmy Kimmel’s return to late-night television this week, you’re in for a surprise. On ABC6, where “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” is supposed to air, you may see something else. It hasn’t been canceled by Disney, the network’s parent company. Instead, it’s being deliberately blocked from your television by the station’s corporate masters.

This act of censorship is your local window into a nationwide power play, where massive media conglomerates are flexing their muscles to appease a vindictive Trump administration, silence dissent, and expand their own empires at the public’s expense.

WLNE (ABC6), the station blocking Kimmel, is operated by Sinclair Broadcast Group. What many Rhode Islanders are likely learning for the first time is that Sinclair, a company with a documented history of spreading right-wing propaganda, also controls WJAR (NBC10). The state’s third major local station, WPRI (CBS12), is owned by another corporate giant, Nexstar Media Group. Nexstar, just like Sinclair, has announced it will pre-empt Kimmel on the ABC stations it controls across the United States.

Let that sink in. All three of your primary sources for local television news are controlled by just two national corporations, both of which are now actively censoring a late-night comedy show to curry favor with the far right. This isn’t a coincidence; it’s the predictable outcome of a system that allows capitalism to run rampant over the public interest, transforming trusted local news brands into tools for a radical political agenda.

The firestorm erupted after Kimmel, on his show last week, correctly noted that “the MAGA gang” was “desperately trying” to mischaracterize the suspect in the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The comment was a direct and accurate criticism of an ongoing right-wing disinformation campaign. In response, the Trump administration didn’t just get angry; it got authoritarian. Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), declared Kimmel’s remarks part of a “concerted effort to lie to the American people” and chillingly warned that the agency was “going to have remedies that we can look at.”

This is not a thinly veiled threat. It is a direct promise from a government regulator to interfere with the free press on behalf of a political agenda. It is the kind of strong-arming one expects in an autocracy, not a democracy.

For corporations like Nexstar, which owns our own WPRI 12, that threat was heard loud and clear. Nexstar is currently trying to shove a massive $6.2 billion merger with another station owner, TEGNA, through the approval process at that very same FCC. If the merger is approved, it would create an almost unimaginable monopoly on local news, subjecting over 80% of American households to Nexstar’s editorial control. Suddenly, Nexstar’s decision to defy Disney and block Kimmel doesn’t look like a principled stand. It looks like what it is: a corporate bribe, using programming as a bargaining chip to win favor with a corrupt administration and clear the way for a deal that would decimate what’s left of independent local media.

Sinclair, the operator of ABC6 and NBC10, is no stranger to this kind of manipulation. For years, the company has been a key node in the right-wing influence machine. As documented in a Guardian report, Sinclair has a long and sordid history of using the trusted brands of its local stations to push a national, hard-right agenda.

The company gained infamy in 2018 for forcing its local news anchors across the country to read a creepy, identical script decrying “fake news” – a direct echo of Trump’s own attacks on the media. According to a study in the American Political Science Review, when Sinclair buys a local station, its coverage of national politics immediately increases and takes a sharp turn to the right. They created “The National Desk,” a program Judd Legum, author of the Popular Information newsletter, notes is branded to sound innocuous but pushes a familiar narrative: “it’s a lot of the issues you might find Trump talk about in a stump speech.”

Pam Vogel, a senior adviser at Media Matters for America, pointed out that Sinclair has previously distributed segments from Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn under the label of “commentary.” Now, the propaganda is more covert. “This time around, it’s branded as The National Desk, which sounds a lot more innocuous, and feels a lot more like news,” Vogel said.

This is the company controlling two of Rhode Island’s three major news stations. This is the company that, without any apparent irony, is now censoring a program because it believes it is not in the “public interest.”

In this high-stakes battle, one might expect Disney, the parent company of ABC, to fight back aggressively. But Disney has its own monopolistic ambitions. The company’s sports behemoth, ESPN, is working on a deal that would give the National Football League (NFL) a direct ownership stake in the network. This would create a blatant conflict of interest, a textbook monopoly where the league being covered also controls the coverage. You can expect less reporting on player injuries like CTE, fewer investigations into league scandals, and a general blackout of any news that might damage the NFL’s brand and profits.

This kind of anti-competitive deal would normally be blocked by federal regulators. But in a Trump administration, where laws are suggestions and regulations are for sale, anything is possible. Trump has signaled he would approve the deal, provided Disney remains compliant. This helps explain Disney’s tepid response to Sinclair and Nexstar. The company is caught between placating an authoritarian government to get its own monopoly approved and standing up for its own programming.

For Rhode Islanders, the silencing of a late-night show is the canary in the coal mine. It reveals a local media landscape that has been wholly captured by corporate interests aligned with a fascist political movement. Your local news anchors, people you’ve come to trust, are being forced to serve as the friendly face for a national propaganda operation. The fight is not just about Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue. It’s about whether our sources of information will serve the public or serve the powerful. Right now, in the Ocean State, the powerful are winning.

UPDATE: ABC 6 has confirmed this afternoon that, despite the Sinclair situation, they plan to air Jimmy Kimmel’s latest episode tonight.