ABC files station renewals under protest amid FCC retaliation fight

ABC filed renewal applications for eight owned television stations under protest Thursday after the Federal Communications Commission ordered the company to seek early review years before the licenses were due.

The stations are in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, San Francisco, Fresno, California, and Durham, North Carolina. Their licenses had been set to come up between 2028 and 2031, but the FCC’s Media Bureau told Disney’s ABC on April 28 to file by May 28, an extraordinary acceleration that ABC called an “unlawful, arbitrary, and unconstitutional” order.

The company said the action amounted to “unconstitutional retaliation and coercion” and asked the FCC to rescind the directive. ABC warned that the public would bear the real harm if broadcasters feared regulatory punishment before making editorial choices, because the pressure could push newsrooms toward self-censorship. ABC also said the agency had not forced an early license renewal in more than 50 years, underscoring how unusual the move was.

The FCC said the early review was tied to its investigation into Disney’s diversity, equity and inclusion practices and possible unlawful discrimination. But the timing made the dispute impossible to separate from the broader clash between the Trump administration and ABC over Jimmy Kimmel, after Donald Trump and the first lady attacked Kimmel over a joke about Melania Trump. Critics said the FCC’s move, coming a day after Trump’s latest attack, looked like retaliation.

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, the agency’s lone Democrat, called the reviews an “egregious assault on the First Amendment.” Free-speech groups including the Freedom of the Press Foundation and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression also blasted the action as intimidation and viewpoint retaliation. Their criticism went beyond ABC’s corporate interests: broadcast licenses are the legal foundation that lets stations operate, and a precedent for using that leverage against a network over speech or editorial decisions could reshape how local and national broadcasters cover politics, government and public controversy.

ABC’s fight with the FCC now tests the boundary between regulatory power and constitutional protection. If the agency can force an early license review while citing a separate investigation, broadcasters across the country may have reason to wonder whether criticism of government figures could invite scrutiny far beyond the newsroom.