The Federal Communications Commission is reviewing Disney-owned ABC’s broadcast licenses, a day after President Donald Trump called on the company to fire comedian Jimmy Kimmel.
The FCC under chair Brendan Carr, who was appointed by Trump, said on Tuesday that it was investigating Disney for its DEI practices.
“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,” the filing read.
ABC was directed by the FCC to file early renewals for its licensed TV stations by May 28, or within 30 days. This order applies to the eight affiliate stations owned by ABC, including those in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
The FCC said the renewal request for Disney’s ABC licenses was “essential” to ensure the stations are acting in the public interest.
Semafor first reported that the FCC was planning to challenge Disney’s ABC broadcast licenses, which weren’t up for renewal until between 2028 and 2031.
A Disney spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider that the company had received the FCC’s order about the accelerated license review.
The spokesperson said Disney was confident the record “demonstrates our continued qualifications as licensees under the Communications Act and the First Amendment” and that it was “prepared to show that through the appropriate legal channels.”
Conservative podcaster Katie Miller posted a clip on Tuesday of Carr saying that there was “evidence that Disney has been pretty bad,” asserting that the company was potentially “giving different opportunities to people based on their race or gender.”
Carr said as early as March 2025 that he planned to investigate Disney. Carr’s FCC has also investigated Comcast for its DEI policies.
Disney, like many American companies, has retreated from some DEI policies in the Trump era. It has deemphasized words like “diversity” and “equity.”
The FCC review comes days after a controversial joke from ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. The comedian upset the Trumps by joking last Thursday that the first lady “had a glow like an expectant widow.” On Saturday night, an armed man went into the building that hosted the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
The president wrote in a social media post on Monday that “Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC,” while the first lady remarked on X that “people like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate.”
“This is not really about DEI,” said Seth Stern, the director of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said of the broadcast license reviews.
“That the FCC feels the need to use DEI as a pretext to go after ABC’s licenses shows that it’s known all along that its threats to revoke broadcast licenses for content-based reasons were a nonstarter under the constitution and the law,” Stern continued.
The FCC rarely revokes broadcast licenses.
One of the few revocations came in the 1960s, after a local TV station in Jackson, Mississippi, refused to cover the Civil Rights movement. A few years later, a Washington Post-owned station in Jacksonville, Florida, was threatened after covering a racist comment made by a former Supreme Court nominee of President Richard Nixon, though the effort was unsuccessful.
Kimmel was criticized by Carr last fall for the ABC host’s comments about Charlie Kirk’s killer. At the time, Carr said that broadcasters could get their licenses reviewed if they weren’t acting “in the public interest.”
Disney and ABC temporarily suspended Kimmel’s show last fall. They haven’t done so this time.
Last fall, Disney faced a boycott after sidelining Kimmel. Millions of streaming subscribers canceled Disney+ and Hulu in the wake of Kimmel’s suspension, Business Insider reported.
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