The Walt Disney Co. and ABC are once again pushing back on the FCC, this time over the agency’s demand that it file early renewal applications for its broadcast licenses, a move that the company calls a threat to the First Amendment.
“It is an extraordinary demonstration of power and coercion directed at disfavored editorial voices which sends a clear warning to every broadcaster in America,” the company said in a filing with the agency on Thursday, along with its renewal applications for eight of its stations. “This is a threat to the First Amendment that this Commission and this proceeding must not be permitted to normalize.”
In April, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr ordered Disney to submit early license renewals for its owned operated stations early, a highly unusual process required of broadcasters. The company’s licenses were otherwise up for renewal starting in 2028.
The early renewal was related to the FCC’s investigation of Disney’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies, the FCC said. But it came just a day after Donald Trump again called on ABC to fire late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.
In a legal exhibit attached to the renewal applications, the company’s filing stated that the “true purpose and inescapable effect” of the FCC’s order “are to suppress speech—to ramp up toward possible license revocation” and cause the stations “and others to think twice before they say something the government might dislike.”
Earlier this month, ABC also challenged the FCC’s investigation of The View, amid claims that the show violated equal time rules after it featured James Talarico, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, as a guest. Those regulations require that broadcasters that feature political candidates on their airwaves provide comparable time to rivals if requested. Among other things, ABC said that the show had received a “bona fide news exemption” from the FCC in 2002, and that it and other broadcast talk shows were being singled out while radio programs were not. Radio talk shows are dominated by conservative voices.
Denial of a broadcast license renewal is extremely rare, and is a process that can drag out for years. In the immediate term, the FCC can now take public comment on ABC’s license renewals and, among other things, designate the stations’ fates for a hearing.
The FCC has to determine whether a broadcaster has operated in the public interest, a rather broad term that Carr has asserted gives him authority even over broadcast content.
Although the agency’s website states that it “is prohibited by law from engaging in censorship or infringing on First Amendment rights of the press,” Carr on Thursday issued a public notice reminding “broadcasters of their public interest obligations.”
“The Commission will continue to analyze ownership structures to ensure that they are responsive to the needs of their local communities and are providing them with diverse viewpoints reflective of the information needs of those communities,” the notice stated.
Among other things, the notice contended that “courts have recognized that there are limits on broadcasters’ First Amendment rights.” “The mere denial of a license because the public interest requires it ‘is not a denial of free speech,’” the FCC said in the public notice.
Anna Gomez, the sole Democrat on the FCC, wrote in a post on X, “The ‘public interest’ does not mean this administration’s interests. Broadcasters should ignore these latest threats and stiffen their spine. Pushing back is the only thing that will stop this FCC from abusing its power to silence speech and punish independent reporting.”
In its filing on Thursday, ABC said that the FCC’s early license renewal demand “is inconsistent with a legitimate exercise of investigative authority and is plainly incompatible with the First Amendment.” The network also said that “opens the door to an assault on” station licenses, while “the Commission searches for a legal pretext to achieve its desired goal. This effort to suppress speech under the guise of bureaucratic process must not prevail.”
More to come.