Complaints regarding ABC US's cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Hi ABC FOI team,
I hereby request, under the Freedom of Information Act, the following documents:
1. Copies of complaints received by the ABC from confused complainants, related to the American Broadcasting Company's cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, from 16 September 2025 to 25 September 2025
2. Any responses from the ABC to those complaints, if applicable, and any further replies from those complainants to the ABC's responses
3. Any internal correspondence relating to the ABC's receipt of such complaints.
To assist the ABC in more promptly processing the request, I preemptively agree to the exclusion of:
a) duplicates of documents;
b) duplicate email chains;
c) draft versions of a document where a later version exists;
d) publicly available documents;
e) personal information (including names and contact details) of ABC staff (although job titles are to remain);
f) personal information (including names and contact details) of complainants.
I also agree to:
g) administrative release of some or all of the requested information if this would assist the ABC in processing the request.
Yours sincerely,
Daniel M
Good afternoon Mr M
ABC FOI 202526-038
The ABC acknowledges receipt of your request, sent on Thursday 25
September 2025, seeking access under the Commonwealth Freedom of
Information Act (1982) (FOI Act) to:
1. Copies of complaints received by the ABC from confused complainants,
related to the American Broadcasting Company's cancellation of Jimmy
Kimmel Live!, from 16 September 2025 to 25 September 2025 2. Any responses
from the ABC to those complaints, if applicable, and any further replies
from those complainants to the ABC's responses 3. Any internal
correspondence relating to the ABC's receipt of such complaints.
To assist the ABC in more promptly processing the request, I preemptively
agree to the exclusion of:
a) duplicates of documents;
b) duplicate email chains;
c) draft versions of a document where a later version exists;
d) publicly available documents;
e) personal information (including names and contact details) of ABC staff
(although job titles are to remain);
f) personal information (including names and contact details) of
complainants.
A decision on the request is due to be made by Monday 27 October 2025,
subject to any extensions of time for consultation or by agreement. The
ABC will notify you if any processing charges apply after the first 5 free
hours.
By making a FOI request, you are providing personal information to the
ABC. The ABC manages personal information in accordance with its Privacy
Policy - available at [1]ABC Privacy Policy – ABC Help - Australian
Broadcasting Corporation Help Centre. Personal information may be
disclosed in the course of processing this request, such as for the
purposes of consultation or internal reporting.
The FOI team would be grateful of you would agree a brief extension of
time as we are processing a number of requests received before yours that
are directly related to the functions of the ABC. Would you be happy to
agree an extension until Wednesday 12 November 2025 under s 15AA of the
FOI Act? Please let us know by return email, thank you for your
consideration.
Many thanks,
ABC FOI team
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Good afternoon Mr M
ABC FOI 202526-038
The ABC refers to the email below and note we have not heard from you.
Kindly confirm you are contactable at this email address?
As mentioned on 1 October, the ABC would be grateful of you would agree a
brief extension of time as we are processing a number of requests received
before yours that are directly related to the functions of the ABC.
Would you be happy to agree an extension until Wednesday 5 or 12 November
2025 under s 15AA of the FOI Act? Please let us know by return email, by
Monday, as we are required to notify our regulator if it is agreed by
Monday.
It is possible this request will otherwsie become a deemed refusal on
Monday 27 October so we would be ever so grateful if you could reply to
agree to an extension to allow a decision to be made under the FOI Act.
Thank you for your consideration. We are happy to discuss by phone if
helpful.
Many thanks
ABC FOI team
13 9994
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From: FOI ABC <[ABC request email]>
Sent: Wednesday, 1 October 2025 12:37 PM
To: [FOI #13709 email]
Subject: FOI 038 - Acknowledgment of request ( kimmel )
[ABC-LEGAL.FID111575]
Good afternoon Mr M
ABC FOI 202526-038
The ABC acknowledges receipt of your request, sent on Thursday 25
September 2025, seeking access under the Commonwealth Freedom of
Information Act (1982) (FOI Act) to:
1. Copies of complaints received by the ABC from confused complainants,
related to the American Broadcasting Company's cancellation of Jimmy
Kimmel Live!, from 16 September 2025 to 25 September 2025 2. Any responses
from the ABC to those complaints, if applicable, and any further replies
from those complainants to the ABC's responses 3. Any internal
correspondence relating to the ABC's receipt of such complaints.
To assist the ABC in more promptly processing the request, I preemptively
agree to the exclusion of:
a) duplicates of documents;
b) duplicate email chains;
c) draft versions of a document where a later version exists;
d) publicly available documents;
e) personal information (including names and contact details) of ABC staff
(although job titles are to remain);
f) personal information (including names and contact details) of
complainants.
A decision on the request is due to be made by Monday 27 October 2025,
subject to any extensions of time for consultation or by agreement. The
ABC will notify you if any processing charges apply after the first 5 free
hours.
By making a FOI request, you are providing personal information to the
ABC. The ABC manages personal information in accordance with its Privacy
Policy - available at [1]ABC Privacy Policy – ABC Help - Australian
Broadcasting Corporation Help Centre. Personal information may be
disclosed in the course of processing this request, such as for the
purposes of consultation or internal reporting.
The FOI team would be grateful of you would agree a brief extension of
time as we are processing a number of requests received before yours that
are directly related to the functions of the ABC. Would you be happy to
agree an extension until Wednesday 12 November 2025 under s 15AA of the
FOI Act? Please let us know by return email, thank you for your
consideration.
Many thanks,
ABC FOI team
This email, including any attachments, is intended only for the addressee.
It is confidential and may contain privileged information. You should not
read, copy, use or disclose it, or take any other action in reliance of
the information contained in this email, without authorisation. If you
have received the email in error, please immediately let the sender know
by separate email or telephone and delete the email from your system.
Hi FOI team,
Sincere apologies, I thought I had already replied but evidently not! My mistake.
I agree to the extension to 12 November 2025.
Have a great weekend.
Yours sincerely,
Daniel
Hi ABC FOI team,
Noting that there are likely other FOI requests that have a higher priority and relating directly to the ABC's functions (including one which I will be resubmitting shortly), I would like to ascertain the following:
1. Are you aware as of yet how many complaints there were which are covered by my request? If so, how many?
2. How advanced is the ABC in progressing this request?
3. Would it be of assistance (operational/resourcing wise) if I were to revise my request at this stage down to a random sample of 'x' amount of the complaints identified? Or is it too late for that to help?
I understand your team has been under resourcing pressure in the past, and hope that this is seen to be a genuine effort to assist in that respect.
Kind regards,
Daniel
ABC FOI 202526-038
Good afternoon Daniel M
Thank you for your email, we appreciate your understanding as noted below. This request is progressed and is currently due next Wed 12 November 2025.
If you seek to finlaise the file next week, it would help to revise the scope to include only the ABC's response and how many (misdirected) complaints in were received (ie. to remove point 1).
Whilst you have stated you are happy for personal contact details to be redacted, the documents concern a third party business. Therefore if you seek the individual complaints (point 1) we are considering consultation with the other ABC which would mean the decision would fall due mid-December.
Many thanks,
ABC FOI team
13 9994
We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians
and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn and work.
This email, including any attachments, is intended only for the addressee. It is confidential and may contain privileged information. You should not read, copy, use or disclose it, or take any other action in reliance of the information contained in this email, without authorisation. If you have received the email in error, please immediately let the sender know by separate email or telephone and delete the email from your system.
Hi ABC FOI team,
Apologies, but I'm a bit confused. Your reply mentions that the ABC is considering third party consultation with ABC US. My understanding is that this would fall under s 27 of the FOI Act.
I don't believe third party consultation with ABC US would be necessary. The only reasons that they may make a contention are under s 47 or s 47G. I don't believe ABC US would reasonably wish to make a contention that the documents are exempt.
s 47 - trade secrets/commercially valuable information: I don't think anyone could reasonably contend that complaints made by members of the US public about a late night talk show programme being pulled off the air are trade secrets or commercially valuable information. You could likely find complaints of a similar nature by searching "jimmy kimmel" on Twitter. In any case, the programme has been reinstated since my FOI request, so any 'commercial value' has already disappeared given the complaints are no longer relevant to ABC US's operations.
s 47G - disclosure of business information which would adversely affect the organisation's business, commercial or financial affairs: A similar reason to above - I don't think anyone could reasonably contend that release of complaints made by members of the US public about a late night talk show programme being pulled off the air would adversely affect the ABC US's business, commercial or financial affairs. Again, the programme has been reinstated. Even if it were the case that this criteria were satisfied, the document must still be released unless it would be contrary to the public interest to do so. I don't believe, and don't think anyone could reasonably contend, that public knowledge of complaints made by members of the US public would be contrary to Australia's public interest.
I also note that the ABC has already released excerpts of a few complaints in the news article available here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-20/c...
With respect to the scope of the request, I am still interested in receiving the individual complaints. My offer was to revise the individual complaints to a random sample of x amount of the complaints, depending on the total amount of complaints and how close the ABC is to providing a decision & documents. For example, say that there were 300 complaints - if the ABC was ready to provide a decision tomorrow, there wouldn't be much point to me revising my request. Whereas if there were still 100 complaints left to be sorted through, I would just revise my request to the 100 complaints that have already been processed as of this date, which would negate the need for the ABC to go through the rest of them.
Your response indicates to me that the ABC has already processed (or is almost finished processing) all of the documents, and that the only other delay would be if the ABC decided to undertake third party consultation. If that's the case, then I would just allow my FOI request to proceed as originally submitted.
If I've misunderstood or got something wrong in my response, please let me know.
Thanks,
Daniel M
ABC FOI 202526-038
Mr M
The ABC's response was to clarify in response to your email that points 2 and 3 were at decision making stage should you revise or remove point 1. We note that you proactively offered to narrow your scope today (without prompting).
A sample of 100 complaints is not small in this context. If you have access to examples published outside of FOI then please confirm whether you have narrowed your scope or whether you no longer wish to propose this.
If the scope remains the same we will update you around 12 November as the ABC has files due sooner - such matters have a connection to the ABC and are to be prioritised. We have a high volume of requests.
There appears no benefit in changing the scope at this late stage. The ABC FOI team is not in a position to comprehensively assess what public documents you have excluded that are already available to you. Noting you have today given an example, we are grateful to know you have accessed information outside of the FOI process.
FOI Team
We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians
and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn and work.
This email, including any attachments, is intended only for the addressee. It is confidential and may contain privileged information. You should not read, copy, use or disclose it, or take any other action in reliance of the information contained in this email, without authorisation. If you have received the email in error, please immediately let the sender know by separate email or telephone and delete the email from your system.
Hi ABC FOI team,
I appreciate your prompt reply at this hour.
I honestly do think that there's some confusion on both our parts, as your reply makes reference to points I didn't make nor intend. But given that you've stated there appears to be no benefit in changing the scope at this stage, I think I'll save us both the hassle and keep the FOI request as is. I apologise for wasting your time.
Daniel
ABC FOI 202526-038
Good morning Daniel M
The ABC is required to consult with an affected third party under s 27 of
the FOI Act. As such the timeframe for processing your request is
automatically extended under s 15(6) such that a decision is due by
Wednesday 12 December 2025
It is up to that third party to make a submission on their own behalf. It
is not reasonable to presuppose their views when determining whether to
share documents publicly.
We would be grateful to be provided an alternate email address for sending
the final decision.
Many thanks,
ABC FOI team
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Hi ABC FOI team,
I note your reply advising that third party consultation is required. For the avoidance of doubt, I was not suggesting that their views should be presupposed, but simply putting *my* views as to why I believe third party consultation would not be necessary, and as to why I believe ABC US could not reasonably make a contention (as per s 27(1)(b) - "This section applies if it appears [...] that the organization might reasonably wish to make a contention").
My preference is that any decision and documents are provided to the righttoknow.org.au email address. If an alternative is *necessary*, I can provide one, however I would greatly appreciate if you could please advise why (e.g. if it's due to a technical issue with sending the files, etc.).
Yours sincerely,
Daniel