The FCC has ordered Disney’s eight owned ABC stations to apply for early renewal of their broadcast licenses — by May 28 — citing an investigation into the company’s DEI practices.
The agency’s order on the early license review said the action is pursuant to a probe into Disney and ABC over potential violations of the FCC’s “prohibition on unlawful discrimination.” But it comes amid a MAGA uproar over Jimmy Kimmel‘s joke about Melania Trump looking like an “expectant widow,” comments he made just days before a gunman crashed into the White House Correspondents’ Dinner with the apparent intent of trying to assassinate President Trump.
The spectrum licenses for the eight ABC-owned stations were not due to come up for renewal until 2028 at the earliest, with some not due until 2031 — and the FCC’s demand for early review of the TV station licenses is unusual.
In a statement, a Disney spokesperson said: “We have received the Federal Communications Commission’s order initiating an accelerated review of the licenses held by ABC’s owned television stations. ABC and its stations have a long record of operating in full compliance with FCC rules and serving their local communities with trusted news, emergency information, and public‑interest programming. We are confident that record demonstrates our continued qualifications as licensees under the Communications Act and the First Amendment and are prepared to show that through the appropriate legal channels. Our focus remains, as always, on serving viewers in the local communities where our stations operate.”
The FCC’s Media Bureau, in its order released Tuesday, said, “The FCC has been investigating The Walt Disney Company, its American Broadcasting Company, and its subsidiaries (collectively, ‘Disney’s ABC’) for compliance with its obligations as a licensed broadcaster. Specifically, the FCC has been investigating Disney’s ABC stations for possible violations of the Communications Act of 1934 and the FCC’s rules, including the agency’s prohibition on unlawful discrimination.”
While ABC “has purported to respond to two FCC Letters of Inquiry (LOIs) as part of this investigation, the FCC has determined that additional actions are appropriate at this time,” the order continued. “Specifically, FCC rules provide that whenever the FCC regards an application for a renewal of a license as essential to the proper conduct of an investigation, the FCC has the authority to call the broadcaster’s licenses in for early renewal. Doing so both allows the FCC to conduct its ongoing investigation and enables the FCC to ensure that the broadcaster has been meeting its public interest obligations more broadly.”
The FCC determined that calling in Disney’s ABC licenses for early renewal “at this time” under the Communications Act’s public interest standard “is essential within the meaning of agency regulations. Therefore, Disney’s ABC is hereby directed to file license renewals for all of their licensed TV stations within 30 days — in other words, by May 28, 2026,” the order stated.
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ABC’s eight owned local TV stations are: WABC-TV New York, KABC-TV Los Angeles, WLS-TV Chicago, WPVI-TV Philadelphia, KTRK-TV Houston, KGO-TV San Francisco, WTVD-TV Raleigh-Durham, N.C., and KFSN-TV Fresno, Calif.
Carr has on several occasions threatened to use the FCC’s regulatory authority to revoke licenses of TV broadcasters that air programming he finds objectionable — including Kimmel’s on-air comments last September about Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
The FCC chairman earlier this month suggested ABC could lose its broadcast TV licenses over what he characterized as Disney’s illegal DEI programs. “If the evidence does in fact play out and shows that they were engaged in race- and gender-based discrimination, that’s a very serious issue at the FCC, that could fundamentally go to their character qualifications to even hold a license,” Carr said in an interview on Fox News.
Critics have slammed Carr’s threats about yanking TV broadcast licenses as tantamount to First Amendment violations, alleging they are aimed at discouraging or punishing speech disfavored by the Trump administration and its allies. Anna Gomez, the only Democratic commissioner on the FCC, commented on an earlier Semafor report about the agency’s potential review of the ABC station licenses, “This is unprecedented, unlawful, and going nowhere. This political stunt won’t stick. Companies should challenge it head-on. The First Amendment is on their side.”
“Brendan Carr’s FCC subjecting Disney-owned-and-operated television stations to an early license renewal proceeding because of jokes in a late-night monologue is viewpoint retaliation,” Bob Corn-Revere, chief counsel of advocacy group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), said in a statement. “The FCC may claim these actions are based on DEI policies and have nothing to do with Jimmy Kimmel, but its timing makes it clear these justifications are a fig leaf. This campaign against a disfavored broadcaster violates the First Amendment, pure and simple.”
Added Corn-Revere, “The First Amendment requires those in government to be strong enough to take a joke — including ones that President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump consider to be in bad taste.”
Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said the FCC has “no authority to cancel broadcasters’ licenses because of their perceived political views. But this isn’t just about the rights of Disney and ABC. President Trump is trying to consolidate control over what Americans see and hear on the radio, television and social media. If he gets his way, we’ll have only government-aligned media organizations that broadcast only government-approved news and commentary. It would be difficult to imagine an outcome more corrosive to democracy or more offensive to the First Amendment.”
Kimmel’s joke on the Thursday, April 23, episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” featured a mock White House Correspondents’ Dinner. During the bit, the host quipped that Melania had the glow of an “expectant widow” — prompting both President Trump and the First Lady to post separate statements on social media Monday calling for Disney and ABC to fire Kimmel.
That came two days before the real WHCD on April 25 was thrown into chaos after an armed man charged through a security perimeter outside the ballroom before he was apprehended. The suspect, identified by authorities as California resident Cole Tomas Allen, has been charged with attempting to assassinate Trump.
On Monday’s episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” the late-night host defended his remark about Melania as “a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am. It was not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination. And they know that.”
Kimmel continued, “I’ve been very vocal for many years speaking out against gun violence, in particular. But I understand that the First Lady had a stressful experience over the weekend. And probably every weekend is pretty stressful in that house. And also, I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject. I do. And I think a great place to start to dial that back would be to have a conversation with your husband about it.”
In September 2025, Carr threatened to investigate TV stations for “news distortion” if they didn’t drop Kimmel (following Kimmel’s comments about MAGA trying to score political points in the aftermath of Kirk’s killing). Carr threatened ABC and its affiliates if they did not “take action” on Kimmel: “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.” Carr implied the FCC would pursue “news distortion” allegations against local ABC broadcasters unless they dropped Kimmel’s show.
In addition, the FCC has initiated enforcement proceedings of what Carr has alleged were violations of the equal time rule involving political candidates by ABC’s “The View” daytime talk show over an appearance by James Talarico, a Democrat running for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas.
The FCC chairman has previously claimed he’s not censoring anybody and that he isn’t against free speech — he’s just against “fake news” and that he’s just doing his job to hold spectrum licensees accountable to a “public interest” standard.
Meanwhile, Carr has dangled the same kind of threat in other instances, including last month when the chairman implied the FCC would not renew licenses of broadcasters that perpetrated “hoaxes and news distortions” in their coverage of the Trump administration’s Iran war.
All that said, any charge the FCC lodged against a TV broadcast company about alleged “news distortion” would be tied up in bureaucratic proceedings for months or even years. That before it could reach a court of law — where it would likely be challenged.
On Monday, Trump blasted Kimmel over the Melania sketch and called for his firing.
“Jimmy Kimmel, who is in no way funny as attested to by his terrible Television Ratings, made a statement on his Show that is really shocking,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “He showed a fake video of the First Lady, Melania, and our son, Barron, like they were actually sitting in his studio, listening to him speak, which they weren’t, and never would be. He then stated, ‘Our First Lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.’ A day later, a lunatic tried entering the ballroom of the White House Correspondents Dinner, loaded up with a shotgun, handgun, and many knives. He was there for a very obvious and sinister reason. I appreciate that so many people are incensed by Kimmel’s despicable call to violence… Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC.”
Melania Trump, hours before the president weighed in, had written in a post on X, “Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country. His monologue about my family isn’t comedy — his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America.”
She continued, “People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate. A coward, Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him. Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand. How many times will ABC’s leadership enable Kimmel’s atrocious behavior at the expense of our community.”
From Variety US