{"id":643623,"date":"2026-08-18T13:26:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T13:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/643623\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T13:26:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T13:26:15","slug":"abc-sues-fcc-over-threats-to-broadcast-licenses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/643623\/","title":{"rendered":"ABC Sues FCC Over Threats to Broadcast Licenses"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tABC<\/a> is suing the Federal Communications Commission over the agency\u2019s efforts to challenge its broadcast licenses and the content of The View, saying that it is a free speech violation by the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Disney<\/a>-owned network filed suit against the FCC Tuesday in D.C. District Court, asking the court to stop the early broadcast license renewal proceedings and asking for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction. The timing of the suit comes as ABC noted that the comment period on renewal applications has closed and the FCC could \u201cat any moment\u201d issue an order which would kick off a formal hearing on the licenses for all eight ABC stations. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe consequences of the Administration\u2019s campaign against free speech reach well beyond ABC. If the Administration gets its way, the message to every media company in the country will be unmistakable: tell only the stories the Administration deems favorable, or face the coercive machinery of the federal government. In such a world, the press could in no way be described as free,\u201d the suit reads.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe FCC<\/a> called ABC\u2019s eight broadcast licenses in for an early renewal earlier this year, which the network <\/a>filed but \u201cunder protest.\u201d The renewal seemed to be aimed at parent company Disney\u2019s DEI policies, though the network noted that just before calling in the licenses, the administration had called for it to take action against late night host Jimmy Kimmel over a joke he made about Trump on his program.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cUntil the day before that order was issued, the Commission had not called for a renewal application ahead of schedule in more than half a century. Nor had it ever demanded simultaneous early renewal applications from a group of stations commonly owned with a single broadcast network \u2014 much less stations with the record of public service and award-winning journalism like these stations. In a contemporaneous interview, the Chairman did not mince words when explaining the Commission\u2019s decision to ramp up its pressure on ABC: \u2018If you didn\u2019t take us seriously, now you should,\u2019 the suit reads.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe suit notes continued threats against the broadcast licenses, including a moment where Trump also called for full revocation of the license from ABC, as well as NBC, for not broadcasting his July 16 primetime address live. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cABC was aware that the President wanted the address to be broadcast live, and considered the risk of resulting Administration retaliation. ABC ultimately decided to livestream the speech on ABC News LIVE, which it ordinarily would not have done,\u201d the suit reads. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe FCC also launched a separate proceeding about The View, which it argued is not a \u201cbona fide\u201d news program and therefore was not exempt from FCC equal opportunity rules. ABC said in an earlier filing that the FCC \u201cnow appears poised to find that The View must provide equal opportunities to all legally qualified political candidates if it interviews one candidate on the show, which would represent a reversal of decades of agency precedent.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the suit Tuesday, ABC said it has continued to work with the FCC on the investigation, including responding to more than 600 separate requests and producing more than 13,000 pages of documents across both investigations. But throughout the process, the network said it has still faced threats to its stations\u2019 licenses due to the content of the programming.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Commission\u2019s true target is not the stations\u2019 employment practices or their carriage of a single presidential address; it is the content of plaintiffs\u2019 programming \u2014 and thus their speech. Because the Commission cannot regulate that content directly, it has used its review of the stations\u2019 licenses as an instrument to the same end,\u201d the suit reads. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe FCC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. <\/p>\n

\n\tBut while awaiting a possible FCC decision, ABC claims that any \u201cadjudication would be a charade,\u201d surmising that the agency may either prolong the process, leading to high court costs and continued threats against ABC, or move to immediately revoke the licenses and take the stations off air. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn either scenario, the Administration accomplishes its goal of eliminating a perceived media critic: either it gets Plaintiffs to fall in line, or it silences them if they refuse,\u201d the suit reads. <\/p>\n

More to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ABC is suing the Federal Communications Commission over the agency\u2019s efforts to challenge its broadcast licenses and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[265],"tags":[14350,1887,18,117,48775,19,17,128],"class_list":["post-643623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-abc","tag-disney","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-fcc","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-tv"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117116743827301637","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}