Walt Disney Co.\u2019s ABC is forcefully resisting Federal Communications Commission efforts to soften the network\u2019s programming, accusing the federal agency of an overreach that violates 1st Amendment freedoms.<\/p>\n
Last week, the FCC took the unusual step of calling in the licenses of eight Disney-owned television stations for early review<\/a>. The move \u2014 widely interpreted as an effort to chill the network\u2019s speech \u2014 came a day after President Trump demanded that ABC fire late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel over a joke<\/a> about First Lady Melania Trump. <\/p>\n The FCC separately has taken aim at ABC\u2019s daytime discussion show, \u201cThe View,\u201d which delves deeply into politics. <\/p>\n The FCC has questioned whether the show, which prominently features Trump critics Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar, could continue toclaim an exemption to rules that require broadcasters to provide equal time for opponents of political candidates.<\/p>\n In its filing this week with the FCC, Disney\u2019s Houston television station raised the stakes in the dispute over \u201cThe View,\u201d calling the commission\u2019s actions \u201cunprecedented\u201d and \u201cbeyond the Commission\u2019s authority.\u201d The ABC station\u2019s petition for a declaratory ruling said \u201cThe View,\u201d has long qualified as a \u201cbona fide\u201d news interview program with freedom to conduct interviews of legally qualified political candidates. <\/p>\n \u201cThe Commission\u2019s actions threaten to upend decades of settled law and practice and chill critical protected speech, both with respect to The View and more broadly,\u201d the Houston station KTRK-TV said in the filing.<\/p>\n The network\u2019s firm stance sets up a clash with the Trump administration, including the president\u2019s hand-picked FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who has made no secret of his disdain for Kimmel and other ABC programming. Earlier this year, Carr announced that decades-old exemptions from the so-called \u201cequal time rule\u201d for news programs, including \u201cThe View,\u201d were no longer valid. <\/p>\n ABC\u2019s strenuous arguments mark a departure for the Disney-owned outlet. <\/p>\n