Nexstar and Sinclair are bringing back Kimmel, but many viewers may have found alternatives while he was blacked out

Beginning Friday night, Jimmy Kimmel Live! will return to air on the ABC affiliates, which had preempted the show last week over remarks he made about Charlie Kirk’s assassination. 

“As a local broadcaster, Nexstar remains committed to protecting the First Amendment while producing and airing local and national news that is fact-based and unbiased and, above all, broadcasting content that is in the best interest of the communities we serve,” a Nexstar statement said.  “We stand apart from cable television, monolithic streaming services, and national networks in our commitment–and obligation–to be stewards of the public airwaves.”

Similarly, Sinclair issued a statement earlier on Friday reversing its decision to keep the comedian off its airwaves.

It cited “feedback from viewers, advertisers, and community leaders representing a wide range of perspectives.”

Sinclair had previously vowed not to put Kimmel back on air unless meetings were held with ABC to discuss the network’s “commitmentment to professionalism and accountability.”

Those discussions are still ongoing, though ABC and Disney have not yet accepted any measures proposed by Sinclair, which included a network-wide independent ombudsman, per the company’s Friday release.

The stand-down comes days after Kimmel’s first episode back on air had the highest ratings for a regularly scheduled episode in over a decade. His monologue at the top of the show ranged from the First Amendment and the Trump administration to Erica Kirk’s speech at her late husband’s memorial, garnering over 21 million views on YouTube in just a couple days—the most for a monologue in his show’s history.

Kimmel’s comeback on Tuesday drew 6.3 million TV viewers, about four times the show’s average, despite nearly a quarter of ABC’s national reach blacking out his return episode. Sixty-six local stations owned by the ABC affiliates did not broadcast Jimmy Kimmel Live!, but this cost them a natural influx of viewership, and possibly some of their market, according to media experts.

“Blackouts like this often highlight the strength of digital platforms,” Natalie Andreas, a communications professor at the University of Texas, told Fortune. 

Instead of limiting reach, blackouts push viewers toward spaces like YouTube where content spreads faster, lingers longer, and attracts new audiences who may not have tuned in live, she said.

Susan Keith, a professor in the Rutgers School of Communication and Information, told Fortune the blackouts can push viewers to seek—and easily find—Kimmel on their digital cable packages or YouTube if local stations didn’t air the show.

“There’s this idea of public interest, necessity and convenience that over-the-air broadcast media were supposed to fulfill,” she said. “So if we all move to streaming services for content because (of) incidents like this one,” it trains viewers to seek media this way.

Earlier this year, streaming overtook cable and broadcast as America’s most-watched form of TV, according to Nielsen data. 

The FCC does not license TV or radio networks such as CBS, NBC, ABC or Fox, but rather individual stations that may air programming from these networks. But the shift to streaming has raised questions about what its continued role might be as viewers lean away from individual broadcast stations. 

“I think this is an open question,” Keith said. “I think we don’t really know what to think about the ultimate usefulness of the FCC.”