News Network Under Fire For Scrapping Charlie Kirk Tribute

A national tribute to Charlie Kirk was not carried by one of the country’s largest broadcast distributors, putting the company in the crosshairs of conservatives who questioned the executives’ decision to stay silent on an event featuring President Donald Trump and some of the biggest names in his administration.

Sinclair Broadcast Group, which carries ABC to hundreds of local stations across the U.S., nixed coverage of Sunday night’s touching funeral for Kirk in Glendale, Arizona, where hundreds of thousands of spectators arrived to pay their respects. Over 200,000 had registered for the event at State Farm Stadium, which has a maximum capacity of 73,000 attendees.

The ABC affiliate blamed its decision on violent threats received hours before the event was set to start, forcing Sinclair to shift its coverage of Kirk’s funeral to YouTube.

A source close to decision makers said Sinclair, which owns more than 40 ABC affiliates, cited “local threats directed at specific local ABC stations resulting from [the] ABC suspension” of Jimmy Kimmel, according to the NY Post.

Sinclair was one of the leading protestors calling for Kimmel to apologize or see his show terminated after he lit into Trump and the MAGA movement for framing Kirk’s killer as a far-left activist.

Last week, a gunman fired three shots into the building of an ABC affiliate owned by Tegna, which is in the middle of a $6.2 billion merger application with Sinclair. A suspect was arrested and posted bail before the FBI took them into custody.

In the days leading up to the Kirk funeral, Sinclair executives reportedly feared that coverage would inspire copycat shooters like the one in Sacramento, according to the source.

State and federal law enforcement were warned by Sinclair about the looming threats, and private security companies were hired to provide additional coverage, they explained. It’s unclear which agencies were alerted, and the Post could not independently confirm the claim.

In a brief statement on X, Sinclair wrote Sunday that it would “continue to air ABC network programming as scheduled in the late-night time period.”

The broadcaster announced last week that it planned to replace Kimmel’s slot with coverage of the Kirk event.

But as the event began to go live at 11:35 p.m. EST, viewers of Sinclair’s ABC affiliates instead saw a rerun of “Celebrity Family Feud.”

The Kirk tribute contained a rehashing of Kirk’s assassination on September 10, the search for suspected gunman Tyler Robinson, and how Kirk’s legacy at Turning Point USA will be carried on by his wife, Erika.

In an emotional moment, Erika Kirk forgave the gunman for killing her husband.

“That young man. That young man. On the cross our savior said, ‘Father, forgive them for they know not what they do’ — that man, that young man, I forgive him,” she said as the audience wiped tears in a standing ovation.

“I forgive him because it was what Christ did. And what Charlie would do. The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the Gospel is love and always love. Love for our enemies and love for those who persecute us.”