Trump FCC faces blowback in attempt to police speech on broadcast TV

Despite two conservative groups petitioning the FCC to deny ABC’s license renewals, some conservative groups say the agency should not police speech and that the proceeding could set a precedent that would harm conservatives in future administrations. “We take no position on the merits of any particular application before the Commission in any pending matter,” said a filing by 14 conservative and free-market groups, including the Center for Individual Freedom, American Commitment, and Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform. “Our concern is that establishing precedents of non-routine renewal creates a powerful lever that future FCCs—including ones hostile to conservative, religious, or otherwise disfavored broadcasters—would be all too willing to pull. The surest protection against that future is to keep the renewal process predictable today.” The FCC historically reserved non-routine license renewals “for genuinely extraordinary circumstances, such as failures that go to a station’s basic capacity to maintain its operation or malfeasance,” the filing said, pointing to cases in which a station held an on-air contest that contributed to a listener’s death and a station that went dark for extended periods. “Preserving that high and content-neutral bar is precisely what keeps the Commission out of the business of judging speech,” the filing said. The American Civil Liberties Union, Knight First Amendment Institute, and other free speech groups told the FCC that it has abused its regulatory power to violate the First Amendment right to free speech. They wrote that “the actions and statements by Chairman Carr and President Trump leading up to the Order demonstrate that the agency’s genuine motivation is to pressure Disney to censor viewpoints that Chairman Carr, and the president, do not like.” Dozens of Democratic members of Congress submitted filings supporting ABC and criticizing the FCC. It doesn’t appear that any Republican lawmakers did the same, though Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) recently teamed up with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) on legislation designed to rein in federal officials who try to coerce broadcasters or tech platforms into restricting speech. Cruz and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) criticized Carr’s attacks on ABC during last year’s fight over Kimmel’s show. Although a July 5 Semafor report said The View is “proceeding cautiously with political candidate bookings while the FCC’s equal-time inquiry” unfolds, Disney is fighting the FCC proceedings. Disney and the ABC stations it owns yesterday filed their opposition to the petitions to deny the license renewals. Similar to its previous filings, Disney said the Trump administration is retaliating against ABC for exercising its First Amendment rights. “For years, President Trump has expressly demanded that the Commission revoke ABC’s broadcast licenses for speech he dislikes. Since his appointment, Chairman Carr has subsequently opened all manner of investigations and issued a slew of burdensome investigatory requests,” Disney said. Disney said ABC-owned stations have not violated the FCC’s news distortion policy, the broadcast hoax rule, the equal-time rule, or the discrimination rules the FCC cited in opening the proceeding. “Calling up the license of a single Station—let alone all eight at once—while the Commission’s DEI investigation has found no violation is unnecessary, premature, and punitive,” Disney said. “Even if any violation were ever substantiated, the Commission has a graduated set of well-established remedies far short of the corporate death penalty of license non-renewal.” On July 16, with the license proceeding ongoing, ABC and NBC decided not to air a Trump primetime address, though they did stream the speech online and report on the speech in breaking news segments. Trump responded with another call to revoke ABC and NBC licenses. The Center for American Rights told Carr that the failure to air the speech should be held against ABC in the license proceeding. “The following week, Chairman Carr commented at a public press conference that the President’s speech was ‘something that broadcasters should be carrying,’ and suggested that the network’s decision not to broadcast the President’s speech would be raised and considered by the Commission during these license renewal proceedings,” Disney said. Carr has been cagey on the potential outcome of the license renewal proceeding. “We’re going to follow the facts and the law wherever it goes,” he has said. Legal experts say it’s unlikely that the FCC could revoke ABC licenses. A 1996 change to US telecommunications law made it nearly impossible to deny a renewal. Ordering a station to file early renewal applications also doesn’t change the actual dates the current licenses expire. The eight ABC stations are scheduled for renewals between 2028 and 2031. Even if ABC beats the attempts to take away its licenses, Carr may succeed in chilling the speech of broadcasters. “Faced with such danger, any broadcaster would question whether its speech is worth the cost,” Disney told the FCC yesterday. “Indeed, the public record is replete with examples of other broadcasters who, when faced with similar pressures, quickly folded to the administration’s demands.” Disney’s filing pointed to Paramount’s merger approval after it reached a $16 million settlement with Trump, canceled Stephen Colbert’s show, and “created an ombudsman to field complaints of ideological bias.” Disney further noted that various companies, including Paramount, dismantled diversity programs in exchange for FCC approval of mergers. Disney said it has scaled back its own diversity programs during the Trump administration, but added that the FCC “has made no indication here that some form of resolution with Disney would be possible, further underscoring that its investigation is fueled by retaliation rather than policy objectives.”