Nick Craig Filling In On The TJ Ritchie Show

Nick Craig of The Carolina Journal News Hour Fills In On This Friday Edition of The TJ Ritchie Show

Hour 1: 

​Segment 1: 

Subject: Nick begins the show by talking about a story at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington that is gaining national attention. The story includes several students defacing a memorial that the college's Turning Point USA chapter made for Charlie Kirk on the school's spirit rock. There is a 24-hour rule for things that are painted on the sprit rock, and a group of Liberal students broke that rule.

Segment 2: 

Subject: Nick continues talking about the controversial situation at UNCW from the previous segment. He explains that the Liberal students who defaced the spirit rock are negatively influenced by their professors and other influences that Charlie Kirk is an evil person that shouldn't be memorialized. Nick goes on to talk about how he can't understand how these Liberal students can do something like this to a peaceful display of remembrance.

Segment 3: 

Subject: Nick pivots to talk about the current situation surrounding Charlie Kirk. He references an article describing that "one-third of students believe that violence is a way to stop campus speech". He goes to explain how ridiculous and inhumane this ideology is in the public discourse, as well as out-of-control incidents that have occurred on other college campuses.

Segment 4: 

Subject: Nick explores a survey that talks about controversial topics that college students on the Left think should result in violence. These students believe that Right-leaning figures who speak out against the topics, such as the Israel-Palestine conflict, should be silenced for speaking about these topics. Nick believes that what is being taught in college classrooms should be investigated to prevent students from thinking negatively about the students who speak up.

HOUR 2

Segment 1: 

Subject: Nick talks about how shocked he is about how much media attention Jimmy Kimmel has received about his controversial comments about Charlie Kirk. Kimmel and his late-night show have been suspended by ABC following his remarks about the tragic killing. Nick mentions that national TV news networks are still discussing this story, over a day after it was announced by executives at Sinclair Broadcast Group and ABC Television.

Segment 2: 

Subject: Nick shares a breaking news story from CNN about Jimmy Kimmel meeting with ABC executives about his suspension. Nick talks about the Live coverage that MSNBC and CNN are giving to the story, as well as the evolution of late-night television and its audiences.

Segment 3: 

Subject: Nick continues to talk about how Jimmy Kimmel decided to make his comments about Charlie Kirk, even after officials in Utah held a press conference earlier that day announcing charges for suspect Tyler Robinson. Nick explains how Kimmel's comments have created a "domino-effect" for ABC on a national level, a local level with their affiliates, and a revenue level with their advertisers. He also speaks with a caller about his opinions regarding the late-night television landscape.

Segment 4: 

Subject: Nick talks about Jimmy Kimmel trying to take legal action regarding his suspension from ABC. Nick spins this story into a discussion about free speech, giving the example of how Kamala Harris celebrated Donald Trump getting removed from Twitter, now known as X. He goes on to say that just because you think speaking out about something is free speech, that's not always the case.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
News Talk eleven, ten and ninety nine three WBT proudly
present America's coolest Conservative. Oh well, proudly could be stretching
it a bit. Welcome to the DJ Richie Show.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
All right, seven oh six, News Talk eleven ten, ninety
nine three WBT. It's the TJ. Richie Show. I'm Nick Craig.
I host the Carolina Journal News Hour, which runs weekday
mornings five to six right here on WBT. I also
host the Nick Craig Show podcast you, which you can
find in all of your favorite podcast in apps. I'm

(00:35):
in for TJ tonight at seven oh four five, seven
oh eleven ten. If you want a text call, get
in on the program this evening. Love to have you.
You and c W, that's the University of North Carolina
at Wilmington, has been in the news a lot this
past week. You may have seen or heard some of
the chatter as to what was going on over at

(00:55):
U and c W as a video went viral in
the large art due to some of the chaos that
has been unfolding on the campus over at Wilmington where
the college is so just kind of set the stage
as to how the situation that you may have seen
on social media which included left wing agitators defacing a

(01:16):
Charlie Kirk memorial. How did we get to that situation?
So Monday night of this week you had the Turning
Point USA chapter, which of course is Charlie Kirk's organization,
and the College Republicans hold a candlelight vigil on campus
and that went off without a hitch. I went there

(01:36):
Monday night for a while, close to two thousand or
so people and for a last minute event. It was
only announced I think late in the day on the
Friday before that it was going to be happening. About
two thousand people. Their great crowd, very emotional. It was
great to hear from some of the students at UNCW
that are politically involved, actively engaged as to what's going

(01:58):
on not only in their their federal government, but their
local government. So that was Monday night, around six thirty
or so earlier in the day on Monday. There's a
piece of property known as the Spirit Rock that exists
on the campus of UNCW. It's been there for forever.
It is just a large boulder that exists on the

(02:19):
campus and it's called the Spirit Rock because it is
frequently decorated by students and by various chapters and groups
at the college with a variety of issues. You know,
they have a big win in a soccer match, you'll
see that the rock is painted with the final score.
You know, got Seahawks. That's their their school mascot. So
this is a pretty important part of campus, and it's

(02:41):
something that is constantly changed and is constantly moving. It's
repainted three four times a week. So a member of
the Turning Point USA chapter at UNCW spent about eight
hours throughout the day on Monday painting this rock, putting
a full American flag on one side of it and

(03:02):
on the other a silhouette of Charlie Kirk and some
quotes of his and then the year he was born,
in the year unfortunately just back a couple of weeks
ago that he passed away. It was immediately clear to
the college Republicans on campus and those that are part
of the Turning Point USA chapter that this was going

(03:24):
to cause a problem now as again, as I noted, this
is a kind of living piece of art on campus,
and it's important to note that there has been a
gentleman's agreement for lack of a better term that you
leave the rock alone for twenty four hours. There's no
set in stone policy on it, but it is referenced

(03:46):
in the student handbook that the spirit rock is supposed
to be left alone for twenty four hours. Which makes sense, right,
I mean, if you have somebody that puts in a
couple hours painting something and then you just happen to
be walking by it, it makes sense that you would
leave it alone for a twenty four hour window. I
don't think that's too much to ask. So eventual happens
six point thirty Monday night, and immediately it is clear

(04:08):
to the students involved on campus that left wing agitators,
left wing protesters who of course didn't bother to show
up to the vigial and cause any sort of havoc
or hell, they stayed away because there was a crowd
of two thousand people and they're cowards, they're scared, so
they didn't show up to that. But it was clear
that they were going to deface this mural, which had

(04:31):
just been finished painted eight hours beforehand overnight. So you
had a group of students that literally slept outside Monday
night into Tuesday morning to make sure that this thing,
this memorial to Charlie Kirk was not defaced. Now, if

(04:51):
you have been seeing any of the social media chatter
on this, and it's gotten some major national news, you'll
see a lot of people saying, well, this wasn't truly
a memorial. This is a spirit rocket's supposed to be changed,
and it's not supposed to be a permanent fixture of
the campus. And I don't think anybody was under the
auspices that this was going to be a permanent landmark

(05:12):
on the campus. But you had a two thousand person
vigil on Monday night. Somebody spent eight hours painting this
and setting it up, and you would have just assume,
in a normal, just society that people would follow that
gentleman's agreement. But then, of course you have to rationalize
and wrap your head around how you're not dealing with rational, logical,

(05:36):
follow the rules people. You're dealing with the progressive left.
And not only are you dealing with the progressive left,
you're dealing with those on college campuses, which is a
completely different ballgame. You've got individuals twenty twenty one, twenty
two years old that have been indoctrinated through their entire

(05:58):
public education system K through twelve school. They're studying, you know,
underwater basket weaving or whatever ridiculous stupid degree at UNCW,
and they are radical progressives. They don't believe that there
are consequences for their actions because frankly, in the past,
there hasn't been. Frankly, in the past, they've been able

(06:21):
to act this way. In the past, they've been able
to pretty much do whatever they want unchecked, and everybody
just kind of kind of turns a blind eye. Administration
doesn't step in because you don't want to weaponize the
progressive left against you as the chancellor or the administrator
of any prominent college. And let me state this, I'm

(06:43):
not beating up on U and CW. This is an
issue I would argue on pretty much ninety nine percent
of public college campuses across the United States. This is
not a unique issue to UNCW or frankly, any unc
school at all. This is an issue with left wing
and doctrination, which is the most prominent in college in

(07:06):
the later years of K through twelve in most cases
public education. So you're dealing with a group of people
that pretty much will do whatever they want. So you
had about half a dozen or so maybe between half
a dozen and a full dozen students Monday night that
literally slept outside next to a rock because there was

(07:26):
a concern there was a risk that somebody would deface
the mural that had been painted and not follow the
gentleman's agreement, the standard, the norm of just leaving the
thing alone for twenty four hours. Fortunately, them sleeping outside
during the night, couple folks, you know, rotating who was sleeping,

(07:47):
who wasn't. It wasn't defaced overnight Monday into Tuesday, but
as daybreak rolled around and as students were going to
class mid morning, well that's when the situation that you
probably saw on social media maybe you saw it. It
was all over Fox News and a couple of other
outlets unfolded where you had a college student, don't exactly

(08:09):
how old she is or was, but a college student
who decided that she was going to pour light blue
and pink paint all over the Kirk memorial. And it's
not like there wasn't anybody around. You had actively while
this situation was unfolding, a small group had gathered to

(08:30):
say a prayer for Kirk, for his wife, for his
one and three year old daughter, who will now of
course never see their father again, and for everybody involved
in turning Point USA. And while they were standing there
and conducting their small prayer circle, you had a radical, unhinged,

(08:52):
out of control progressive leftist who decided that was the
time to strike and poor paint all over the Charlie
Kirk memorial. We'll get into some some more details on this.
If you saw this over the last couple of days,
really going viral on social media. Love to hear from you.
You can text your call. Seven oh four five seven

(09:12):
oh eleven ten. That's seven oh four, five seven oh
eleven ten. It's Nick Craig in for TJ Richie this evening,
Newstalk eleven ten and ninety nine three, WBT WOW News
Talk eleven ten, ninety nine three. It's the TJ Richie Show.

(09:33):
Nick cray singing for TJ this evening, seven oh four
five seven oh eleven ten. If you'd like to be
part of the program, we're talking about a member of
the UNC system here this evening. That's unc W down
in Wilmington. They've been in the news a lot over
the last five days or so. Started Monday with a
candlelight vigil put on by members of Turning Point USA

(09:55):
at the college and the College Republicans putting a about
a two thousand or so person event together Monday evening
and then really what sparked an incredible amount of outrage
on social media, and I'll note even across the community
were the events that unfolded on Tuesday. So this Spirit
Rock that we've been talking about, it was painted Monday
by a member of the TPUSA chapter on campus and

(10:18):
the gentleman's agreement, again no policy set in stone, but
the gentleman's agreement is you leave the rock alone for
twenty four hours. It's really not that complicated. Somebody takes
time to paint the rock with whatever. I'll note during
the Summer of Peace and Love in twenty twenty, the
rock frequently had BLM painted all over it and it

(10:42):
stayed up for days, weeks, maybe even months at a time.
Nobody dared to touch that when it was up there
during again the peaceful time when your cities and were
burned to the ground and looted during the Summer of
Peace and Love in twenty twenty. So it's not the
first time that something political, something that is controversial, has

(11:02):
been painted on this rock, and within just hours of
the work being done, somebody pouring eight hours over this
thing and making it happen. You had left wingers on campus,
indoctrinated students, radical progressive liberals that aren't used to having
to deal with any consequences for their actions, did exactly
what you would expect them to do, because they are

(11:24):
of the mindset they have been told by those in
the media, they have been told by their liberal progressive friends,
probably in some cases by their professors, that Charlie Kirk
in his support for Donald Trump, and based on the
things that he said, that Charlie Kirk was a racist,
a fascist, a bigot, every ism you can possibly imagine

(11:47):
in the book. And so with that thought, the rock
being painted in tribute less than a week after Charlie
Kirk was politically assassinated at the University of Utah Valley
in the state of Utah. That was too much for
those progressives to deal with on campus, and so they

(12:08):
did exactly what you would expect them to do. Tuesday
mid morning, while a group was around the rock trying
to provide just some cover of protection for it. Well,
you saw that you may have seen the video that
made its way through social media showing multiple college students
defacing that memorial, defacing the beautiful tribute that had been

(12:30):
painted on it, all in the name of justice. Now,
I will give myself a shameless plug on this, Absolutely
no shame at all. I posted this on my X
account Tuesday afternoon and it received at this point in time,
nine point two million views, and it was reposted to
many other accounts. I don't know what the aggregate is,

(12:52):
but it's potentially tens of millions of views on Instagram, X, Facebook,
and TikTok, all of the the social media channels that
you would expect. It really blew up to the point
that even the chairwoman of the College Republicans at UNCW
was on Fox News last night with Jesse Waters talking

(13:13):
about the situation that unfolded. And one of the things
that I really took away from the video, which you
can find if you're an ex user it's posted over
on my x account, which is at Nicholas M. Craig,
is that while this individual is wiping by the way,
she's using her hands to paint. So I guess her

(13:35):
liberal arts degree of nothing is coming in beneficial here
finger painting. I guess it does have some real world
implications and some real use cases. While she's painting this
rock with her hands completely covered in blue paint, nobody
is attacking her. Nobody is forcing her to the ground,

(13:57):
Nobody is taking the paint bucket out of her hand
in pouring it over their head. Nobody is assaulting her
with the paint bucket. Not at all. They're actually standing
around and saying a prayer for her and the two
other brave souls, the brave individuals that stood up in

(14:17):
the face of fascism and painted over this rock. And
it really showed, and it was a topic on my
podcast this week that the way in which the left
and the right deals with things are not comparable at all.
The episode one of the names of my podcast this week,
the title was we are not the same, And this

(14:40):
video really emphasizes and it's just one of many. It's
not the first example, it's not the only example that
we just don't handle things the same way. God forbid
this had been roles reversed. I don't like to play
what about isms or anything like that, but had this
been a left wing political message that was painted on
this rock and had a group of conservatives aka racists, Nazis, fascists, right,

(15:07):
you know all the terminology there. Had they done something similar,
some of them may have been assaulted to almost the
brink of severe injury. Somebody could have potentially been killed.
We have seen how the left operates and how the
left deals with this, and then you compare and contrast

(15:29):
that to how the right handles things. Saying a prayer
for the individuals that are determining it is in the
best interests of themselves to paint over this rock. It
is truly such a stark contrast between how the two
different sides of the political aisle operate. And at the

(15:50):
end of the day, let me be perfectly clear and honest,
it's a rock. It's not the end of the world.
I don't think anybody is blowing it out of proportion
that it is the end of the world, even though
that's what I've been accused of doing, having the audacity
to post this video on social media. But to me,
it really boils down to something incredibly simple. All these

(16:11):
students wanted to do was be given the exact same
opportunity that everybody else has had on campus for decades.
They wanted the ability to express their thoughts, express their opinions,

(16:33):
and paint the spirit rock on the campus of UNCW.
That's not a lot to ask. They wanted the same
privilege that everybody else that attends that university is afforded,
and because of the radical, out of control, completely lost

(16:56):
political left, they weren't afforded that. All they wanted was
twenty four hours to remember their guy that was killed
by those on the left, and that even that was
a bridge too far on campus, Even that was too
much to ask. And it's one of the things that

(17:21):
I'm struggling with and trying to figure out how to
explain and how to discuss because a lot of this
stuff is highly controversial, not not Charlie Kirk, but everything
that you've seen over the last couple of weeks, whether
it's the murder of Irena Zaruska on the Charlotte light Rail,
the murder of Charlie Kirk, some of the other things
that have been going on over the last couple of weeks.

(17:42):
You get into a position where you struggle to explain
what's going on. You struggle to try and wrap your
head around how to describe what you're seeing, what you're watching,
and that's kind of where I've been at over the
last couple of weeks. I don't know how to describe

(18:03):
the video that I posted on my ex account earlier
in the week. These students just wanted to remember somebody
that they looked up to. They weren't running around campus
yelling and screaming at people that they need to come
to a prayer visual for Charlie Kirk. They didn't put
up red velvet ropes all across campus to tunnel traffic

(18:26):
to make sure you had to walk by this rock
and see what was on it.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
Now.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
They just wanted to express their opinion, and the left, frankly,
is just not interested in that. They have no willingness
to listen, see, or hear what the other side is doing,
and god forbid, conservatives do try and express their opinion.
We of course saw what the result of that was

(18:55):
in Utah last Wednesday, and over on the campus of
UNCW Tuesday, same situation. It's just not allowed. So you
spend eight hours, you would expect that you would be
afforded the same availability that everybody else is twenty four hours.
Just leave the thing alone, and it's just not good
enough because the left doesn't believe in social norms. The

(19:20):
left doesn't believe in any sort of normalcy as it
relates to society. It is a very frustrating trend, and
it is unfortunately something that is growing at a rapid rate.
I've got an interesting survey out from a group called
Fire talking about some of the issues ongoing on college campuses.

(19:42):
We'll get into those details coming up here in just
a few minutes, Newstock eleven, ten, ninety nine to three WBT.

(20:04):
It's Nick Craig in for TJ. Ritchie this evening, seven
oh four five seven eleven ten, as we talk about
some of the insanity that continues to unfold on college
campuses across the United States in the aftermath, of course,
of the political assassination, the targeted attack against Charlie Kirk
for oh, I don't know, speaking his mind, having the

(20:26):
courage to go to college campuses and have divisive conversations,
challenge individuals on what they believe. He himself being challenged
on the things that he believes. All of that is
just too much for those on the political left to handle.
So they decided to shoot and kill him, plain and simple. Really,

(20:46):
it's really as cut and dry as that. Unfortunately, and
so I caught an interesting article over a course at
Carolina Journal dot com. For those that aren't familiar with me,
I host the Carolina Journal News Hour weekday mornings five
to six am right here on WBT. And the story
headline is this, and we'll get into the details, but
here's just to lay out the situation here. Here's the headline.

(21:10):
A third of college students say violence is an option
to stop campus speech. Just based off the headline, I
would say that we have got a serious problem that
is currently existing on college campuses, regardless of anything that
you've seen over the last couple of years. Of course,

(21:30):
earlier this year and through the later parts of last year,
you had college students, Jewish college students at major, some private,
some public institutions across the United States that were literally
being run off campus because of their religion, because you know, free,
Free Palestine and all of those fun chants and all

(21:51):
of that great movement. Saw that unfolding here unfortunately across
North Carolina as well. But man, is that not an
incredibly disturbing headline for you? A third of college students
say violence is an option to stop campus speech. Speech,
not violence is acceptable to protect yourself. Not violence is

(22:15):
acceptable to physically defend yourself against somebody else. Violence is
acceptable to stop speech. Because those on the left believe,
and you've heard this phrase at nauseum, words equals violence.
Somehow we have driven to a point in society where

(22:37):
somebody expressing an opinion is the equivalent to sucker punching
somebody in the face. I mean, that's what these folks
on the left believe. You might as well go in
knock them out cold, or say something that they find
highly offensive. It's the exact same thing to them. There
is no distinction between those two things. And obviously, as

(22:59):
a rat human being, you can understand how that makes
absolutely no sense at all. So here's the study. It
was done by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
The acronym for that group is fire Fire, and so
this is their sixth annual report, and they've been looking
at over the last six years what has been going

(23:20):
on with speech on college campuses. So the survey asked
this how acceptable various forms of protest are against campus speakers.
It included questions such as acceptability of blocking students from
attending a campus speech, and another question on students quote
using violence to stop speech. Most students, seventy two percent

(23:45):
of them responded that it is acceptable, in limited circumstances
to shout down a speaker on campus to stop them
from speaking on a controversial topic. Now, shouting somebody down,
of course, is not violence. But seventy two percent believe
that if somebody has an opposing viewpoint, somebody wants to
say something that you don't agree with, they shouldn't be

(24:09):
allowed to say that in their voice is more important.
So that number in itself is concerning. Here's the really
eye popping number of the student surveyed, which, by the way,
included sixty eight thousand students. This is not a small
sample size for anybody that follows political polling. Most political
polls are even on the small end eight nine hundred

(24:32):
to maybe a couple of thousand at the absolute most
two three thirty five hundred. Maybe. This survey sixty eight
thousand students across two hundred and fifty seven college campuses.
Of those students surveyed, thirty four percent of them said
using violence to stop someone from speaking is acceptable thirty

(24:58):
four percent. And according to the group Fire that conducted
this survey, this percentage has increased by ten points over
the past four years. So in just a relatively small
span of time, just over a four year period of time,
essentially right the entire Biden administration, you have seen this

(25:19):
number jump from the low to mid twenties to now
the mid thirties where it stands right now. The percentage
of students who would shout down a speaker, block students
from attending an event, or using violence to end campus
speech have all increased since last year and are all
at record highs. Great, it's phenomenal news to hear. So

(25:42):
here's the North Carolina connection. They broke this down by
states as well. In North Carolina again, thirty four was
the national number. In North Carolina, the numbers even higher. Great.
Thirty six percent of North Carolina college students asked in
this survey think it is acceptible to use violence to
stop someone from speaking on campus, at least in rare circumstances,

(26:07):
they added and noted so. Sean Stevens, who is the
chief research advisor to the group fire that put on
this survey, said quote, most students think more students than
ever rather think violence and chaos are acceptable alternatives to
peaceful protests. These findings cut across partisan lines. It's not

(26:27):
a liberal or conservative problem. It's an American problem, and
I would agree it is a massive problem that is
currently existing in our country. You know, colleges, which for
the longest time have always been known as the bastions
of free speech, the bastions of free expression, where you're

(26:52):
allowed to have these divisive, sometimes very highly controversial conversations.
It has now been relegated to if you're a controversial speaker,
thirty four percent of the students on that campus think,
now we're just gonna beat you up. Worse, we'll shoot
and kill you. Why because you spoke, Why because you

(27:18):
had the audacity to, Oh, I don't know, use your voice,
express your opinions, express your thoughts. Again, folks, we're not
talking about people running around college campuses yelling nasty, derogatory
terms towards individuals. We're not talking about somebody riding through
campus on a bike yelling racial or religious epithets. That's

(27:42):
not what we're talking about. We're talking about people like
Charlie Kirk, talking about individuals on the other side of
the political aisle that do these college tours, that are
simply having gatherings I mean, do you remember the situation
back a couple of years ago, Riley Gains She was
a college swimmer at the University of Kentucky. She was

(28:05):
almost beaten to death at a campus out on the
West coast. She had to lock herself into a literal
broom closet and have police come and rescue her because
the students on that campus were so out of their minds.
The students are so out of control that she almost

(28:25):
got beaten up, literally had to lock herself in a closet.
It's incredibly concerning what we're seeing the inability, and obviously
we're talking about college campuses right now, but it goes
well beyond college. I mean, some of the unbelievably hateful

(28:46):
and vitriolic things I've seen over the last week and
a half, I'm stunned. And I spend a lot of
time on the Internet. I spend a lot of time
perusing comments sections all over all over the place to
see what people are saying and thinking. This past week
and a half two weeks have been incredibly eye opening,
even for me that consider myself an Internet veteran as

(29:10):
it relates to hateful commentary online. I've read it all.
I've seen it all. I try to consume it all,
to see what's going on, what's being said. Even some
of it for me has been pretty hard to try
and digest. So, I mean, the question is simple, where
do we go from here? When you have in North

(29:30):
Carolina thirty six percent nationally thirty four percent of students
that say it's okay to use physical violence against somebody
for speaking their mind, for having an opinion, Where do
we go from there? How do we begin to roll
these percentages back so that we can actually have some

(29:52):
semblance of normal conversation. New Stock eleven, ten, ninety nine
to three WBT. Nick Craig in for a TJ. Ritchie
This Friday evening seven oh four five seven eleven ten

(30:13):
is our studio hotline. You can text or call be
part of the program. This evening, we're going through this
report out from group called FIRE. They do a national
survey every year. They've done it now this is their
sixth year doing so. It's the Foundation for Individual Rights
and Expressions, that's the name of the group. And in
their report out, which is called the twenty twenty six

(30:36):
College Free Speech Rankings Report, they look at a variety
of issues with free speech on college campus. And as
we just discussed, in a growing trend, thirty four percent
of students surveyed, as I noted sixty eight thousand students
in total, thirty four percent of them said using violence
to stop someone from speaking is acceptable. So as you

(30:58):
dig into some more tales on this report, it's blatantly
obvious which side is having the bigger problem here. One
of the questions that they asked in this poll was,
and the question reads, is this percentage of students nationally
expressing difficulty discussing topics? So it asked them which of
these topics and gave a laundry list of them, Which

(31:21):
one of these topics do you find an issue discussing
on campus? At fifty three percent, the overwhelming majority is
the Israeli Palestinian conflict. And we know, and we've got,
you know, hundreds of hours of video as to what
those debates have looked like on college campuses, which include

(31:43):
Jewish students being run off of campus for oh, I
don't know, just happen, happening to be Jewish. We've seen
them blocked out of classrooms, We've watched places some of
these college campuses turn into essential like little micro cities
where people are camping out all over the place. It's
just a mess. So that was the top issue that

(32:03):
students said they couldn't express freely. The Israeli Palestinian conflict,
followed by abortion at forty six percent. We know which
side loves discussing that at nauseum the twenty twenty four
presidential election. I would have assumed by late September the
next year, we'd be over that, but I guess maybe

(32:24):
some on the left still want to rehash what the
election looked like last November. All Right, we move on
from that, Transgender rights forty one percent, racial inequality thirty
four percent, gun control thirty three, immigration the same number,
thirty three, and then it goes on from there. The

(32:45):
vast majority of these issues will call them these topics
of conversation are ones that the left has to deal with,
and it's unfortunate that this study shows you're not allowed
to discuss these issues. You are putting yourself in And

(33:06):
I'm not saying this lightly. I'm not trying to make
a joke here or trying a maka situation. But you
go on a college campus, whether you're a social media influencer,
whether you're a talk show host, a television host, somebody
part of some think tank organization. You want to discuss

(33:27):
one of these topics. Palestinian Israeli conflict, abortion, the presidential election,
transgender rights. These issues are so controversial to those on
the political left that thirty four percent of them think
that the only solution to you being there is violence.
What that violence looks like? It could be a variety

(33:48):
of issues. Physical threats are one thing. Of course, we
unfortunately all got to see firsthand what that can look like,
manifest last Wednesday in Utah, literally taking a bullet to
the neck for speaking on a college campus. This is
an incredibly concerning and growing trend. And the question I

(34:13):
asked before the break was how do we roll these
numbers back? It has jumped ten percent two thirty four
percent over the last four years. What's it gonna look
like four years from now? You can have fifty percent
of students saying, yeah, it's okay to physically assault somebody
or worse, kill them if they show up and speak

(34:33):
about a controversial topic. How hides the percentage have to
get before everybody starts asking themselves, what do we do
about this, Let's get ahead of it and do it right. Now.
How do we get ahead of this? I think some administrations,
and this of course is very dynamic and unique depending
on the college or the university that you're talking about,

(34:56):
these administrators need to step up. These administrators need to
not only make sure, but they need to absolutely guarantee
when conservative figures, right leaning figures come on campus that
they and their speech are protected. And it's unfortunate that

(35:20):
we have seen and the same with everything else. There's
dozens of examples of it, of events being canceled due
to security concerns, which I get. If you've got a
legitimate security concern and a legitimate security threat, you're not
going to put your students or the speaker in harm's way.
I totally get that. I'm not oblivious to that fact.

(35:42):
But these administrators, these chancellors, these deans, they need to
make sure that these events are allowed to go on
in some manner, in some form. And really, I think
the biggest way you begin to turn this back is
you've got to look at the classroom. You've got to
look at what is being taught in a variety of
these classes. You've got to look at the level of indoctrination,

(36:07):
the level of actual viewpoint discrimination that goes on in
these classrooms where conservative students do a thing that is
called self censor, which means you keep your mouth shut,
You don't voice your opinion, you don't voice your concerns

(36:27):
with again, maybe a group discussion or group topic that's
going on. You self censor yourself because A you don't
want to have to deal with your fellow classmates, and
B you don't want to risk getting a bad grade.

(36:48):
You don't want to risk having the professor that is,
you know, looking over teaching over the class. You don't
want to get a bad grade from them because huh
my god, you're conservative. By god, you have right leaning
opinions and thoughts. So college students for decades now have

(37:09):
just kept their mouth shut. And I will contend to
you this evening that that's just unacceptable. You don't have
to like. There's plenty of people that I listened to
on a regular basis that I don't agree with everything
hook Line and Sinker. I don't agree with every word
out of their mouth. Charlie Kirk's a great example of it.
I didn't agree with everything that he and turning point, USA,

(37:30):
did I thought they were flawed on a lot of
their stuff. Doesn't mean I didn't appreciate the discussion. That
doesn't mean I didn't appreciate being challenged on my own thoughts,
being challenged on things that I believe, things that I
hold true. That's good to me. It makes your belief

(37:51):
system stronger. It can really in some cases solidify the
things that you already believe in. And I would gather
from looking at this survey and anecdotal evidence that exists.
You're not seeing that right now in a vast majority
of so called institutions of higher learning across the United States.

(38:15):
You're just not conservative. Students are fearful from their classmates
and their professors, so they don't say anything. You've got
these tenured professors that are radical progressives that will turn
a math class into political story hour, And what's the

(38:35):
end result? You're seeing it play out right now. These
students are so indoctrinated, they are so fearful to hear
something that they don't agree with. They believe that words
are violence, and anybody that doesn't agree with every single
one of their beliefs is a fascist, is an authoritarian,
is an existential threat to the existence of our country.

(38:59):
All of those phrase is all those things. It is
so bad that they want to run you off campus
or you know, God forbid literally kill you for having
that stance, having that viewpoint, having that opinion. It's unacceptable
and it's going to, unfortunately hit a tipping point, and

(39:20):
I think we're probably pretty close to it right now
with what you saw in Utah last week. The reaction
to that with Charlie Kirk memorials on college campus is
all over the place, being destroyed, being defaced. It's not good.
And frankly, not only is it not good, it's not sustainable.

(39:42):
It is not something that can continue to go on
long term by any way. Just it's just not possible.
It cannot sustain itself for any significant period of time.

Speaker 1 (39:55):
Please Talk eleven and ninety nine three WBT proudly present
America's coolest conservative. Oh well, proudly could be stretching it
a bit. Welcome to the DJ Richie Show.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
KINDO six News Talk eleven ten ninety nine three WBT.
It's the TJ. Ritchie Show. I'm Nick Craig, host of
the Carolina Journal News Hour, which you can hear weekday
mornings five to six right here on WBT and the
Nick Craig Show podcast, which you can find in all
of your favorite podcasts apps. Sitting in for TJ this
evening at seven oh four, five, seven oh eleven ten,

(40:33):
If you'd like to text or call, be part of
the show in our final hour here this evening. Has
anybody else been Has anybody else been? Blown away? By
how much media attention the Jimmy Kimmel story has gotten.
You're talking about a guy that was barely breaking a

(40:54):
million viewers a night, and why, you might say, Nick,
a million viewers is a lot of people. I agree.
I wish I had a million people listening to my podcast.
This the network that Kimmel is on, ABC is available
in hundreds of millions of homes across the country. The
potential size for his audience is massive. He is on

(41:17):
a network that anybody with a television and an eight
dollars antenna from Walmart can watch completely free, So he
is very accessible in terms of getting his content. It's
not locked behind cable, it's not locked behind a paywall.
It is literally free broadcast television. This guy was barely
cracking a million viewers a night, as TJ talked about

(41:41):
last night, and as you've heard coverage of throughout the
day and over the last day or two, he has
been at least temporarily suspended, indefinitely pulled off the air,
presumably will not come back on. Possibly. I don't know yet.
My crystal ball is not working. It's a little late
on a Friday for that, so not exactly sure what's
going to happen, but at least for the time being,

(42:02):
he's gone. And as I've had the pleasure of watching
cable news over the last two days, it's literally like
all they're talking about. I mean, you would think that
Jimmy Kimmel and his late night show on ABC had
like sixty million viewers a night or something based on

(42:23):
the amount of coverage it's getting. As I'm watching Chris
Hayes right now on MSNBC, he's got a two person
panel discussing this right now. His show started seven minutes ago,
eight minutes ago, right at the top of the eight
o'clock hour, and he has been talking about this topic
from the start. He's now got some expert on the

(42:45):
Chiron reads. Backlash against Jimmy Kimmel being pulled off the air,
So the larger, the more broad discussion that has been
taking place since the announcement, which originally, by the way,
was not from ABC. It was from two very large
station operator groups across the US, next Star Media and Sinclair,

(43:08):
which own combined hundreds of television stations in local markets
all across the country. They announced that they would be
dropping his show indefinitely on Wednesday due to the incredibly
stupid comments that he made Monday night during his monologue
that again nobody really watched because he just doesn't have

(43:28):
an audience. He made comments on Monday. He's got like
probably a dozen writers, if not more, that work on
his show nightly. Those people screened what he said. I
would and can only presume that somebody at ABC Television
knew generally the gist of what was coming in Kimmel's

(43:49):
monologue Monday. There was no objection to it. Kimmel himself,
who is not a nube to the game, has been
around for a very long time. He understands media, he
understands television. He's not an idiot, made his commentary, made
his monologue on Monday, and now he is dealing with
the repercussions. Now he is dealing with the consequences to

(44:13):
the things that he said. And so there's a couple
of different ways to take this discussion, and we'll dive
into the rest of it here throughout the rest of
this hour. Let's start with the decision by ABC. From
a purely financial standpoint, my guess would be, and I

(44:35):
don't have any inside information, but my guess would be
that they are trying to cut costs. And you can say, Nick, well,
what evidence are you using to back that up? I mean,
how can you make that statement? But you just have
to look at what CBS did a couple of months ago.

(44:55):
There was no push from the FCC Commissioner and Brendan Carr,
there was no push from the Trump administration to get
Stephen Colbert off the air. CBS announced earlier this year
that they would not be renewing his contract, and not

(45:15):
only would Stephen Colbert no longer be with the network
come early twenty twenty six, but they would not be
replacing him, meaning that the Late Show, which is the
name of the CBS show that Colbert hosts, would no
longer be on the air. So it's not like a

(45:36):
guy gets fired and somebody comes and replaces him. CBS
is dropping the show in its entirety early next year,
and it makes sense as to why they're doing that.
Colbert is making somewhere in the ballpark of twenty million
dollars a year. He has a support staff all included.
This includes you know, your your writers, your technical directors,

(45:58):
folks that are responsible for coordinating with the in studio audience.
The entire team was estimated, I think it was from
Axios or somewhere else to be one hundred people. So
you've got one hundred people that you're paying, plus the
host at twenty million dollars a year, and he's averaging
one and a half one point seven million viewers a night.

(46:20):
It's a it's a good it's a good size audience.
Don't get me wrong again, I wish I was in
the same ballpark. But when you look at the availability
of the content, how relatively accessible it is. It's literally
free to air television. That's not a huge audience. CBS
earlier this year made a business decision with Stephen Colbert

(46:42):
and with the Late Show it's no longer making money.
We can't support paying the host twenty million dollars a
year and paying one hundred staff members to run a
show that's being viewed by less than two million people.
And you might say, well, Nick, what are some other
what are some of these other shows? Look like Greg Guttfeldt,
who's on Cable News, which does have a relatively high

(47:04):
bar a barrier to entry. You have to have a cable,
satellite or streaming subscription to watch it. The Fox News
channel is not available for free. You can't just buy
an eight dollars antenn at the store and watch Fox News.
You have to pay for it. He's averaging more than
almost between three and a quarter and three and a
half million viewers a night on his show. So there

(47:28):
is an audience in late night television. But there is
a huge drastic difference between Fox, which is again behind
a paywall, and free to air broadcast television like CBSABC
or NBC. And so when you look at what Kimmel
said on Monday, you look at the reaction from Nextstar

(47:51):
Media and Sinclair Broadcasting over announcing they were no longer
going to air his show on their ABC affiliates, and
then ABC later saying We're we're not going to air
the show, We're putting it on suspension hold indefinitely. To me,
it seems like a business decision now were there was
there some pressure from the Trump administration. I mean, if

(48:14):
you consider a guy going on a podcast and saying
that he, as the FCC commissioner, is concerned with the
kind of content that's being broadcast, I guess so. But
there was no legal challenge fire filed against ABC. The
FCC did not formally introduce any sort of review, no investigation, nothing.

(48:37):
I mean, Brendan Carr made comments on a literal podcast,
and ABC seemingly with a snap of a finger, pulled
the plug on Kimmel. It's a business decision. There's no audience,
there's no money, and it's incredibly expensive. When you're paying Kimmel,

(48:57):
who makes sixteen million dollar dollars a year and probably
has a similar sized support staff to that of Stephen Colbert,
it is a hard thing to keep running long term.
These shows, all of them, whether we're talking about Kimmel,
Fallon or Colbert on the three major networks, all of

(49:19):
them have essentially killed all of their viewership. I mean,
you look at what late night television ratings were even
back fifteen twenty years ago, exponentially higher than they are
right now, and there's a good reason why the audience
has left. Welcome back to The TJ Richie Show, Newstock eleven, ten,

(49:54):
ninety nine three WBT. I'm Nick Craig, host of The
Carolina Journal News Hour and The Nick Craig Show. Pot
cast into four TJ this evening at seven oh four
five to seven oh eleven ten. That's seven oh four
five seven oh eleven ten. According to CNN right now
breaking news. This is important, folks. Whatever you're doing right now,
stop doing it. I've got breaking news from CNN. Jimmy

(50:17):
Kimmel met with ABC executives today and did not resolve
his conflict with the organization. CNN has and MSNBC have
been literally talking about this non stop for the last
two days. As I was mentioning before the break, this
is a guy that had like less, almost less than

(50:38):
a million viewers a night on average, and just to
kind of draw a comparison to where things have been
in late night television in the past, when Jay Leno
was hosting The Tonight Show on NBC, which was the
top rated at least in the early and later parts
of the two thousands, when he was hosting The Tonight
Show on NBC on in in two thousand and two,

(51:01):
he was averaging about eleven point eight million viewers a night.
That is an incredibly strong broadcast two thousand and two,
still early two thousands. As things progressed into the early
twenty tens, you have the rise of YouTube and podcasting
and alternative forms of media and content, it started to

(51:23):
drop off. For example, in two thousand and six, where
The Tonight Show still led in ratings for its eleventh
consecutive season, it had an average nightly viewership of still
five point seven million viewers. This is two thousand and six.
You then flash forward to the mid twenty tens, when

(51:44):
you've got the rise of these alternative forms, the show
still had an average viewership nightly of about four million people.
That's still a very strong audience. And so you look
back mid twenty tens is only a decade ago. You
look at where the numbers are now in comparison to
where they were when you had Leno hosting on NBC,

(52:08):
David Letterman hosting on CBS. It's a skeleton of what
it used to be. This is an article from Latenighter
dot com. They're a media outlet that provides information about
late night television. They ran an article back in mid
July looking at the quarter two twenty twenty five rankings

(52:31):
or ratings I should say, for the late night television
shows that we're talking about. And as I mentioned earlier,
Stephen Colbert was and is going to be relieved of
his position by CBS later this year, not because of
any political pressure, but presumably because it was no longer
making financial sense to keep him on the air. At
twenty million dollars a year, with one hundred people running

(52:53):
around producing the show, he is the strongest and continues
to be the strongest in late night television, averaging two
point four million viewers a night. This is out of
the quarter to twenty twenty five ratings. Strong audience there
for Colbert. Regardless of that, CBS said, we just can't
afford to do it anymore. Great. So then you look

(53:14):
at what was going on elsewhere. Jimmy Kimme Alive one
point one seven million viewers, Jimmy Fallon on NBC one
point one nine million viewers. These guys are barely cracking
a million viewers a night. And as I mentioned before,

(53:37):
Greg Guttfelt, who is on Fox News, a pay for
cable satellite streaming subscription channel, is averaging three point twenty
nine viewers a night, three point twenty nine million average
viewers a night. He is blowing all of these shows

(53:57):
out of the water. And you have to pay seventy
eighty dollars a month to get access to Fox News
on most basic cable plans. So why are the numbers
so abysmally low. There's obviously some interest in late night television.
I mean, Gutfeld's pulling almost three and a half million
people a night. Obviously people are up and want to watch.

(54:20):
So what's the issue. These shows have become increasingly irrelevant now.
Some of it, I will admit, is due to the
very dynamic and hyper evolving and always changing media landscape.
You are looking at a model, this traditional terrestrial media

(54:40):
model of late night television that is dwindling its audience.
And that's typical with what you're seeing in media all
over the place, whether we're talking about radio, traditional television, newspapers,
we've seen the hollowing out of many of those industries.
And as somebody that loves radio and has a great
passion for radio, so it's sad to see. But it's

(55:02):
a dynamic, evolving media landscape. You can kick your feet,
yelling and screaming about it, or you can try and
adapt and evolve with the times. These shows have not adapted. Yes,
they put their clips on YouTube, Yes they post their
content on TikTok and Instagram. That's not what I'm talking about.
The show structures don't make sense, and frankly, the show

(55:24):
content it blows. It's not interesting, it's not funny. There's
nothing that comes out of these shows that is even
remotely interesting to the vast majority of the American people.
That's not just my opinion on it. That is a
blatantly obvious based on the ratings. That is blatantly obvious

(55:46):
based on the hollowing out of what these audiences were,
which were in years past. You go back thirty or
forty years, tens of millions of people a night tuning
in to watch people like Johnny Carson, tens of millions
of people a night. Now, cable didn't exist throughout a
large portion of that. You obviously didn't have social media,

(56:07):
you didn't have YouTube and Rumble and all these these
various platforms. There was a little bit more of a
tightly controlled monopoly. And so back to Jimmy Kimmel and
the crying that's going on over this by those on
the political left that you know, Jimmy Kimme Alive is
seemingly suspended indefinitely going forward. You have to ask yourself

(56:29):
for somebody like Kimmel, who's making sixteen million dollars a year,
he's not an idiot, he's not a moron. He knows
the business. He's been involved in it long enough. At
any point do you think he thought to himself, Man,
I am just absolutely losing my audience. I am just
shedding listeners and viewers night after night after night, year

(56:51):
after year after year. Maybe it's time to do just
a little bit of self reflection and figure out where
my audience went, figure out where the American people went.
I would argue that that probably has never happened, or
if it did happen, it was such a quick reflection

(57:13):
that no substantial changes were made. These shows, whether it's
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmelive, or the
Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, these shows have become nothing
more than regurgitation of Democrat left wing talking points, there's
nothing interesting on them. It is a regurgitation of all

(57:35):
the other garbage that exists on television in terms of
so called political news wrapped up in a little in studio.
Audience collaps and sheers when you say something bad about
Trump and booze when you may, every once in a
while mention something about a Democrat. That's what these shows are.
The monologues aren't interesting. You've got Stephen Colbert a couple

(57:59):
of years ago dance around with COVID nineteen vaccines. I mean,
that's our level of humor that exists right now. Stephen
Colbert's going to tell you to get your COVID nineteen vaccine.
And I'm supposed to be shocked that twenty five million
people a night aren't tuning into that. That incredibly edgy.
Definitely not forced by the federal government. Content from Stephen Colbert.

(58:23):
Give me a break. We'll talk about the free speech stuff.
It's a valid discussion. But folks, plain and simple, this
is a business decision by ABC. They know what the
audience looks like. These ratings aren't secret to them. They
employ people and pay them large sums of money to
look at ratings and to make suggestions and so either

(58:46):
A the suggestions weren't made, or B Jimmy Kimmel wasn't
interested in what his bosses at ABC had to say.

(59:08):
It's a thirty four welcome Back Newstalk eleven ten ninety
nine to three WBT Nick Craig in for TJ. Ritchie
on this Friday evening at seven oh four five seven
eleven ten. That's where you can text, you call, be
part of the program. This evening we're talking about apparently
what is a major story. I thought it would be
in the news for like maybe a day, but here

(59:30):
we are, night two. Jimmy Kimmel being suspended, not even fired,
from ABC News is seemingly the biggest political story in
the world to many major news outlets, including MSNBC and CNN. Who,
as I glance over right now, Chris Hayes on MSNBC
has still talk about it. CNN has moved on to

(59:50):
some other, some other ridiculous topic. I'm sure, but Chris
Hayes started his show thirty five minutes ago and he
is still talking about Jimmy Kimmel getting suspended over at ABC.
I'm not saying it's not an interesting story because it is.
There's definitely some interest in intrigue in it, but is

(01:00:11):
it really that big of a story. I just walked
you through the audience. We just together walked through what
these late night television show audiences used to be in
comparison to where they are now. And I'm gonna be
honest with you, And obviously my subset of people I
interact with, of course, is limited, like everybody's is. But

(01:00:34):
I can tell you honestly, I don't know a single
person that watches any of these late night shows. And
I will even add to that, like somebody like Gutfeld.
I just I don't know anybody that is chomping at
the bit to watch late night television. The format to
me is kind of stale. Oh yeah, you've got your

(01:00:54):
live band, and you've got your announcer that you make
funny jokes back in with. You've got your applause track,
your studio audience that collaps at your jokes, and yeah,
you bring on some actress, you bring on a singer,
and know, wow, this completely unscripted thing that we're gonna do,
it's just kind of boring. It's lame. It's not really interesting.

(01:01:16):
It was interesting forty years ago. It was even interesting
twenty years ago, when I think there was some greater
level of authentic content, but that doesn't exist now. And
what makes it even tougher for these shows, whether we're
talking about Colbert or Seth Meyer, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon,

(01:01:36):
whoever we talk about these guys we talk about these shows,
there is so much content available. I mean, it's absurd.
I remember just a couple of years ago, it was
something like one hundred thousand hours a day of content
was uploaded to YouTube, just YouTube, every single day. I'm

(01:01:56):
sure that number has grown. I'm sure if you added
in other social media platforms like Facebook and x and
Instagram and TikTok, it would be hundreds of thousands, if
not millions of hours a day worth of content. So
you've got a very loud, i should say, very large
pool of content to pull from. And so when you

(01:02:19):
watch Kimmel or Fallon or even Colbert Show on CBS,
which I'll note is the highest rated out of all
of them, are you seeing anything that is so interesting?
Are you seeing anything that is so grasping from a
content standpoint that you say, well, this is my routine. Now,
this is what I have to do, and I would

(01:02:39):
just argue that the answers no. So why is Kimmel suspended? Well,
he made, in my estimation, stupid and verifiably untrue comments
on his show on Monday. He opened his monologue talking
about how it was a crazy weekend as the so
called Maga folks tried to distanced themselves from the assassin

(01:03:03):
that shot and killed Charlie Kirk last Wednesday, and indicated
that somehow the individual with his trans boyfriend or girlfriend,
however you'd like to classify that, his mother telling prosecutors
that he had had become radically become a radical leftist

(01:03:23):
in recent years, his back and forth exchange with his
partner about how hateful Charlie Kirk was and how some
hate just can't be reasoned. With all of those facts,
including the Utah County Prosecutor at a press conference last
Friday announcing and walking the public through the text message

(01:03:45):
exchange back and forth, providing information witness statements from his
mother and other family members about how he had become
radicalized to the left in recent years. With all of
those facts out there, Kimmel went on his show with
one point one seven million viewers and tried to make
the point, tried to claim that the Utah Valley shooter

(01:04:10):
was in fact a Trump guy, he was one of us,
even though not only is there no evidence to back
that up, it is verifiably false. When you talk to
and hear from the oh, I don't know the guy
that's actually prosecuting the case, the guy that is seeking
the death penalty against the shooter, against the killer, but

(01:04:30):
that's his right to do so, and that kind of
leads us and transitions us into this discussion over free speech.
Jimmy Kimmel has and still to this point, had free speech.
He was allowed to go on ABC Television, his show
available in hundreds of markets across the United States, and

(01:04:51):
make that statement. Television transmitters were not immediately shut off
in the middle of his monologue. Nobody took a pair
of bolt cutters to the camera that he was talking
to and got him off the air real quick. There
was no government censorship. He was able to do his
entire show. He did, in fact do his entire show

(01:05:14):
and nothing was wrong. He I'm sure, went home and
enjoyed the rest of his night and came into work
the next day, he had his free speech. He was
allowed to make his point. He wasn't persecuted for that.
Now there was public reaction to his comment. There was

(01:05:34):
outrage from American citizens, and then outrage from broadcasters as
they were getting calls from their local advertisers, which, by
the way, a little dirty secret on how media works.
Television and radio, at least those that are terrestrially available.
We are an advertiser supported business. So if our advertisers
get upset with us, if our advertisers say we don't

(01:05:56):
like what you're doing, we're gonna take our business somewhere else,
that is a serious problem. It is an advertiser supported model.
So when Next Star and Sinclair are getting calls from
their advertisers saying, what are you guys airing? Why are
you giving this guy a platform? Why are you giving
him the availability to say this stuff? Those local broadcasters

(01:06:20):
they've got to make a business decision, right. This is
the business boycott that we've seen. And the fact of
the matter is, in an advertiser supported model, you are
at the whim of those advertisers. If that money dries up,
you're out of business. You have no local newscast you
have no local shows, you have nothing. If there's no money,

(01:06:41):
the station is off the air. It's a really simple equation.
So the local operators revolted saying we're done, We're not
airing this show. And then, of course you have ABC
probably deciding this might be a good time to cut
some deadweight with Jimmy Kimmel and his sixteen million dollars
a year salary. Seven four five, seven oh eleven ten

(01:07:02):
is our phone number. Let's head on over to line one.
John is hanging on the line John, Good evening to you.
Welcome to the TJ. Ritchie Show with Nick Craig. What's
going on?

Speaker 3 (01:07:11):
Good evening, Neck, How you.

Speaker 2 (01:07:12):
Doing pretty good? My friend?

Speaker 3 (01:07:13):
Hope you are excellent. Hey, wall it's Friday. It's you know,
it doesn't get much better than that, as h The
thing about the uh Fallon and kim On and all them,
you know, the business model just doesn't work anymore. When
they did these shows started back in the sixties and
fifties and whatnot, the idea was, hey, we get people

(01:07:36):
to fall asleep watching this channel, and when they wake up,
it's still on that channel. When our money making shows
come on, and hopefully they will stick with us into
the new you know, the news and all that nowadays
with most people aren't even watching live, you know, they're
watching on streaming or whatever. But when you turn your

(01:07:57):
cable off, you know, when you come up, turn it
back on morning, it's no longer on the same station,
you know, you know, my noise reverts back to the spectrum.
And then you have to go where you want to go.
So you know, it doesn't make money. And I mean,
what's his name? The Late Show is losing twenty five
million dollars a year, so the business model doesn't make sense.

(01:08:18):
And then you add on Kimmel, you know, saying his
dumb stuff, and it was like, you know, he's just
not worth the effort anymore. He's causing us more problems
than it's worth. I think he was probably going to
get canceled when his contract was up in May anyway,
just like the Late Show, because it just doesn't make sense.

(01:08:39):
And John, I think you're Allen will be next.

Speaker 2 (01:08:42):
I think you're spot onto it, and you're you're making
all really great and solid points. And as you know,
that contract was up in the early parts of next year,
and I'll remind you and everybody else. CBS made the
same business decision, and CBS's late night show was beating
out everybody else's in terms of audience, was beating out

(01:09:02):
everybody else's in terms of viewership and audience. They made
that decision independently earlier this year, and I would suspect
at the high levels of ABC Television that they took
advantage of this opportunity from a business standpoint and said,
all right, he stepped in it this time. There's a
lot of public outrage. We were going to get ready

(01:09:25):
to cut this show anyway, we can now use this
as an opportunity to do it. I don't know that
that's the fact. I don't know that we'll ever know
for certain whether that is true or not. But when
you look at the business model, you look at the audience,
you look at the ratings, you look at the revenue,
you look at the expense of operating this a show
like that, it's a pretty logical conclusion, especially when we

(01:09:47):
saw one of the other major broadcasters do essentially the
exact same thing earlier this year. Welcome Back to The TJ.
Richie Show, Newstock eleven, ten ninety nine three WBT. Nick
Craig sitting in for TJ on this beautiful Friday evening

(01:10:07):
across North Carolina seven oh four or five, seven eleven ten,
If you'd like to jump in on our final segment
this morning, as we continue our discussion of the apparently
now very popular Jimmy Kimmel. Everybody's seemingly talking about him
at nauseum. Now it's a guy that couldn't pull even
one and a half million viewers a night on average.

(01:10:29):
Now it has been NonStop news over the last couple
of days about him, and I just caught an interesting
clip as I was scrolling through ex during the break apparently,
and this was just on Jesse water Show on Fox News.
Kimmel was seen today going into a high profile attorney
office in New York City. So, as I told you

(01:10:53):
the breaking news earlier from CNN Breaking News, stop all
the presses, Kimmel met with the ABC execs today in
apparent currently things did not go his way. So then
I guess he called up a high profile lawyer in
New York City and is going to try and take
a legal challenge against this, And folks, I'll notice somebody
that dealt with this myself last year yeah, meet, he's

(01:11:14):
a ruthless business. It's a tough business. People get fired.
When audience dries up, you say something you weren't supposed to,
you get fired. I mean, it's an unfortunate reality, but
it is a job hazard of working in media, especially
if you are on an advertiser supported model like television
or radio. It's just a risk of doing the job. No,

(01:11:36):
nobody needs any sympathy for it, but it's the God's
honest truth. It's a constant risk. And so I want
to end with the free speech discussion, because that's where
those on the political left who could not care any
less about free speech want to frame this discussion. I'll
remind you that it was just a couple of years
ago that you had people like the previous Vice president

(01:11:58):
of the United States and Kamala Harris speaking on a
national stage that she was glad that somebody like Donald
Trump was essentially removed from social media. You'll remember back
after the twenty twenty election, he was removed from Twitter
at the time it was called Twitter, under the direction

(01:12:19):
of Jack Dorsey. Zuckerberg at Facebook kicked him off. He
was banned from YouTube, just essentially wiped off the Internet.
He then would go on to build his Truth social platform,
which he now uses as a major communication tool across
the United States. So you have people like the previous
Vice president of the United States cheering on people's alleged

(01:12:43):
free speech being removed. And I think it really comes
down to a gross misunderstanding of really what free speech is.
And another part of all of this is just because
you can or just because you are allowed to do
something by claiming, oh, it's protected by free speech, doesn't

(01:13:04):
mean that you necessarily should. I'll give you a great example.
When you're in the presence of children, like talking like
young children. When you're in the presence of children, whether
it's grandchildren, niece and nephews, friends, and they've got kids,
you probably are not using high amounts of profanity. Correct,
You're probably watching your language just a little bit because

(01:13:27):
there are children in the room, and we as a
society understand that swearing in front of children is probably
not the best thing to do. So do you run
around to your family and friends and claim that they
are encroaching on your free speech because they don't want
you dropping f bombs in front of six year olds? Now,

(01:13:48):
of course not that would be a ludicrous thing to
bring forward. So just because you can, just because you're
allowed to do something, it's my right to do so.
Free speech, my constitutional right, doesn't mean that you necessarily should.
Jimmy Kimmel has free speech. He used his platform, his

(01:14:12):
show into just over a million homes close to that
number Monday night. He used his free speech. He used
his voice and the platform given to him by the
executives at ABC Television to broadcast his mind, and he
did so with no remorse, and apparently was going to

(01:14:33):
do his monologue Wednesday doubling down on it, which might
be part of the reason why he was yanked off
the air late in the day on Wednesday, because he
was going to double down on his ridiculously ludicrous and
stupid statements about the Charlie Kirk assassination in Utah. They
just said, probably enough is enough. You're causing us, you're

(01:14:55):
costing us way too much money, and you're becoming a
huge hassle to deal with your liability for our organization,
and we don't want to deal with it anymore. And
so the broader question of is this an overstep? Is
the Trump administration truly acting as now fascists, which and authoritarians, which,

(01:15:17):
by the way, folks, I was already under the impression
that has been happening. I've been told for the last
ten years that Trump was an authoritarian dictator. I've been
told for the last decade that he's a fascist and
he's going to become a king in our country. I
had the pleasure this evening of going to dinner with
my girlfriend and there was a car at a stop

(01:15:37):
lay in front of us that had no kings painted
on the back windshield. So I was reminded of the
king that Donald Trump is becoming. He's been a fascist
and a dictator for apparently ten years, and so now
he's actually a fascist, and now he's actually a dictator
because he himself single handedly fired Jimmy Kimmel from ABC.

(01:16:01):
Brendan Carr, who, by the way, is a phenomenal FCC commissioner.
He is in local communities, he is talking to local broadcasters.
This guy is a broadcasting nerd and a broadcasting nut,
and I absolutely love it. That's who you need at
the helm of the FCC, especially in the ever evolving,

(01:16:22):
incredibly dynamic times that exist in traditional FCC licensed media
right now. Whether you're talking radio or broadcast television, you
need somebody like that at the helm of the FCC.
And I'll note Brendan Carr didn't just pop onto the
scene yesterday. He has been on the FCC Commission for
a significant period of time. He was just recently appointed

(01:16:43):
to the chairman post because it is the party political
party in charge of the President, which of course now
is the GOP that is responsible with tasking the chairman
for the entity. It's a five member board. Brendan Carr
is not new to the FCC. He's not new to
broadcast regulation. He's not new to this industry. And when

(01:17:06):
he was on Benny Johnson's show on Wednesday, and he's
done a plenty of other media hits over the last
couple of days as well. He continues to go back
to one of the things that television and broadcast stations
that are granted a license by the FCC have to
deal with is doing things that are in the public interest.

(01:17:30):
That includes things like local news, local weather, sports, community
interest stories, and community events, so on and so forth.
You're familiar with these kinds of things that are broadcast.
He believes, and I think rightfully so, that there is
a growing trend of these broadcasters no longer serving a
purpose for the communities that they are allegedly supposed to

(01:17:53):
be providing in terms of a public interest element. Now
under the impression, and do I actually believe that the
FCC is going to revoke ABC's license to broadcast. I
don't believe for a second that there's any likelihood of
that happening at all. Do I think what has going

(01:18:15):
on now with Jimmy Kimmel is potentially going to have
some sort of ripple effect across the industry. I think so,
And I think it's about time. We've spent decades listening
to these sorts of talk show hosts get their talking
points from the Democrats, from those on the progressive left,
and we're finally said, enough is enough, We're done with it.

(01:18:37):
We don't want to hear it anymore. It's done. So
I think ABC made a business decision. I don't think
it's free speech overreach authoritarian decisions by Trump and Brendan
Carr in any way. We'll see how it shakes out
as Kimmel continues to meet with lawyers and the good
folks over at ABC Television. It's been a great night.
Filling in for TJ. Ritchie The TJ. Richie Show. I'm

(01:18:59):
Nick Craig, host of the Carolina Journal News Hour. You
can hear me weekday mornings five to six right here
on WBT. I feel like what you heard. Also encourage
you to check out the Nick Craig Show podcast. Enjoy
the rest of you are Friday Night, right here on
Newstock eleven, ten and ninety nine three WBT.