ABC fights FCC effort to force early station license renewals
ABC is fighting an FCC order to reopen eight station licenses years early, calling it punitive and a threat to broadcasters nationwide.
ABC filed formal opposition with the Federal Communications Commission to the agency’s effort to force early renewal of eight broadcast licenses, calling the move “punitive” and “untimely and unwarranted.” ABC said the commission was retaliating against speech it dislikes and using its licensing authority as a cudgel against broadcasters whose coverage it disapproves of. The fight is now in MB Docket No. 26-131, where the FCC set deadlines of June 29 for petitions to deny, July 29 for oppositions and August 5 for replies.
The dispute centers on the FCC’s April 28 order directing The Walt Disney Company, ABC and its subsidiaries to file renewal applications years before the stations’ normal expiration dates. The order covered eight Disney-owned ABC stations: KFSN-TV in Fresno, KABC-TV in Los Angeles, KGO-TV in San Francisco, WLS-TV in Chicago, WABC-TV in New York, WTVD in Durham, WPVI-TV in Philadelphia and KTRK-TV in Houston.
ABC and its allies say the commission went far beyond any routine license review. ABC argued in related filings that the action was an “extraordinary demonstration of power and coercion” and violated the First Amendment. The FCC has not called for an early station renewal in more than 50 years and has never done so for an entire group of stations in this way. Former FCC chairs and officials called the review “an assault on free speech disguised as regulatory process,” and the National Coalition Against Censorship said the agency was “abusing” its authority.
ABC also pointed to the public response. The filing referenced about 150,000 public comments, while roughly 95% of comments submitted to the agency backed the eight owned TV stations.
The order landed in the middle of a broader political fight over ABC and Jimmy Kimmel after a joke about first lady Melania Trump. Sen. Edward Markey wrote to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr on May 7, saying the order, sent at Carr’s direction, came one day after Donald Trump publicly demanded that ABC fire Kimmel and amounted to an extraordinary abuse of power. On July 29, a coalition of labor unions, media advocates and public-interest organizations filed a brief challenging the FCC’s effort to target ABC stations over broadcast content.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker marked the matter as a press-freedom case in Washington, D.C., on April 28. Carr said the FCC would “follow the facts.”
This article was produced by Prism’s automated news system from verified source data, official records, and press releases, then run through automated quality and moderation checks before publishing. The system is built and supervised by the people who set the standards it runs under. Read our full AI policy.
Did this article answer your question?
