“The Order is inconsistent with a legitimate exercise of investigative authority and is plainly incompatible with the First Amendment,” said documents filed by Disney-owned broadcaster ABC Thursday. “Worse, the Order opens the door to an assault on the Station’s license, while the Commission searches for a legal pretext to achieve its desired goal.”
These documents were listed as an objection to an April 28 order issued by the Federal Communications Commission that called in Disney’s ABC licenses for early renewal. They’re part of one of the latest developments in an ongoing battle between the administration of President Donald Trump and the press, including a fight with the Associated Press over limiting journalists’ media access.
Per the April 28 order, the FCC has been investigating Disney’s ABC stations “for possible violations of the Communications Act of 1934 and the FCC’s rules, including the agency’s prohibition on unlawful discrimination.”
FCC Chair Brendan Carr said the investigation is related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in a Friday interview on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street”. Trump’s administration has taken aim at DEI programs since the start of his second term in the White House last year.
CNN noted that while the FCC has repeatedly pursued ABC since Trump took office, the commission actually has “limited enforcement power.” Still, it said that “Carr has scrutinized ABC’s relationships with local affiliates; opened an investigation into Disney’s DEI practices; issued a threat over a joke made by Jimmy Kimmel; and opened a probe into whether ‘The View’ violated a so-called ‘equal-time’ rule.”
Trump himself has called on Kimmel, the host of the late night show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” to be fired following the host’s comments about the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk and Trump’s wife, First Lady Melania Trump. Kimmel was temporarily booted off air (not by the FCC, but by some broadcasting companies) for a short time last year after the Kirk comments, but he returned with strong viewership numbers.
Carr said in an April 30 press conference that Disney is “going to have to come in and demonstrate that they’ve been operating in the public interest,” according to Variety. In a Thursday public notice, the FCC also reiterated this requirement about serving the public interest.
In its objection to the FCC’s order, ABC noted that the FCC hasn’t demanded early renewal in more than 50 years and that it never demanded simultaneous license renewal applications from a group of stations commonly owned with a network. ABC has eight broadcast stations impacted by the order.
Furthermore, ABC said that the order “has no legitimate purpose” and that it is “legally indefensible.”
“This effort to suppress speech under the guise of bureaucratic process must not prevail,” it said. “WABC [the New York ABC station] files this application without waiving any rights, and calls on the Commission to rescind the Order.”
ABC said that the commission has “never articulated – let alone adopted through notice-and-comment rulemaking – any new compliance standard under its broadcast Equal Employment Opportunity (‘EEO) requirements,” that the broadcaster has failed to meet. For example, it said the FCC has not “stated whether or when diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’) practices violate a Commission rule or warrant ordinary punishment, much less the extraordinary punishment of a demand for early license renewal.”
“A licensee cannot comply with a standard that is announced nowhere, defined nowhere, and exists nowhere,” said the documents.
Additionally, ABC explained its role as is relates to the “public interest.”
“The ultimate injury here is not to the Station or its parent company. It is to the public,” said the documents. “When a broadcaster must weigh regulatory retaliation before making editorial decisions, the public loses access to journalism that is free from government influence. The Order – both on its own terms and as a signal to other broadcasters – advances exactly that result. A press that edits itself to avoid government displeasure is not a free press. The Commission should not be the instrument of that outcome.”
YouGov polling has found that the public does not support threats to remove broadcast licenses of networks critical of Trump. Polling from last year found that 64% of respondents opposed such threats.
Anna Gomez, the only Democratic FCC commissioner, has also argued against the FCC’s actions regarding Disney.
“Disney is facing [...] not a series of coincidental regulatory actions but a sustained, coordinated campaign of censorship and control. As I told their new CEO, the fight ahead may not be easy, but the law, the facts, and the public are on their side,” she said in an X post.
ABC noted that Republican Sen. Ted Cruz has also called the FCC’s threats to broadcasters “dangerous as hell.”
While Disney has butted heads with Republican lawmakers in the past, Fortune said that the approach in the recent documents represents a “stark shift” in ABC's approach to scrutiny from Washington. Just before Trump returned to the White House, the network paid a controversial $15 million defamation settlement, the outlet said.
According to Carr’s CNBC interview, the FCC plans to issue a public notice to begin a public cycle where people can petition to deny the renewal of Disney’s licenses. That cycle also opens the door for Disney to file an opposition, said CNBC.
