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ABC is officially calling on the Federal Communications Commission to drop its “extraordinary and unprecedented” proceeding to call in the Disney-owned network’s stations for an early broadcast license renewal.
The network has responded to the Brendan Carr-led agency in a new filing Thursday, bringing on veteran litigator Beth Wilkinson to its legal team (Wilkinson also recently signed on to represent Paramount in its antitrust suit filed by state AGs).
To recap: The FCC called ABC’s eight broadcast licenses in for an early renewal earlier this year, which the network did “under protest.” Ostensibly the decision was about parent company Disney’s 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 on his program.
The FCC also launched a separate proceeding examining The View, which it argues is not a “bona fide” news program and thus not exempt from FCC equal opportunity rules. ABC responded to that proceeding earlier this month, though in its new filing it says that the FCC “now 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.”
