Disney and ABC urged the FCC to toss out petitions calling for the agency to deny the renewal of broadcast licenses for ABC’s eight owned-and-operated TV stations, and they reiterated the assertion that the agency is targeting the stations with the “death penalty of license non-renewal” because President Donald Trump doesn’t like the programming carried on the network.
“For years, President Trump has expressly demanded that the Commission revoke ABC’s broadcast licenses for speech he dislikes,” Disney and ABC said in an FCC filing submitted July 29 and posted publicly Thursday. “Since his appointment, Chairman [Brendan] Carr has subsequently opened all manner of investigations and issued a slew of burdensome investigatory requests.”
The FCC’s Media Bureau in April issued an order forcing ABC to reapply for spectrum licenses for its eight owned-and-operated stations on an accelerated schedule. The agency claimed it was part of its probe into DEI practices at Disney and ABC — but the move came one day after President Donald Trump called for Jimmy Kimmel to be fired over a joke the late-night host made about First Lady Melania Trump. In May, Disney submitted license-renewal applications for the eight ABC stations, which the company said it did “under protest in response to an unlawful, arbitrary, and unconstitutional order.”
