ABC Sues FCC Over 8 Licenses in First Amendment Showdown

Disney's ABC stations are betting that decades of deregulation will shield them from an FCC now using licensing power to punish editorial content.

ABC sued the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday, seeking to halt an early review of its eight broadcast licenses that the network calls retaliation for its coverage of President Donald Trump's administration.

"The FCC has waged a campaign of censorship and control against Disney's ABC stations, using the threat of broadcast license revocations to punish a company for speech this administration doesn't like," Anna Gomez, the sole Democrat on the commission, said.

The FCC under Chairman Brendan Carr ordered the early renewal of all eight ABC-owned station licenses in April, years before their eight-year terms expire. The agency cited the network's diversity, equity and inclusion practices, but the action came days after a joke by late-night host Jimmy Kimmel infuriated Trump. Judge Loren L. AliKhan has set a hearing for the week of October 5.

The case tests whether courts will let the FCC use its licensing power to police editorial content. If ABC loses, the message to every media company is that unfavorable coverage invites regulatory retaliation; if it wins, it could curb the commission's authority over broadcasters for years.

The lawsuit, filed by ABC, parent Walt Disney Co. and the eight affected stations, argues the early renewal proceeding is a "pretext" for punishing the network over content the administration dislikes — from Kimmel's continued employment to guests on "The View" to last month's decision to stream rather than broadcast Trump's primetime speech. The network cites the Supreme Court's 2024 ruling in National Rifle Association v. Vullo, which held that government officials cannot use regulatory power to punish disfavored expression.

The FCC defends the action as routine oversight. "All broadcasters have a legal obligation to operate in the public interest — even Disney," the commission said in a statement. Carr has said broadcasters get "subsidized access" to the airwaves in exchange for serving the public interest, and that the country lacks a "trusted, respected news media."

The network's complaint traces a direct line from Trump's attacks to the agency's action. It quotes Carr telling podcaster Benny Johnson, after Kimmel's joke about the assassination of Charlie Kirk drew conservative fury, that "we can do this the easier way or the hard way" — a remark Senator Ted Cruz likened to "a mafioso coming into a bar." Carr has denied threatening to pull licenses. The FCC's separate probe of "The View" hinges on whether the show must comply with equal-time rules; ABC points to a 2002 FCC letter concluding the program qualifies for a bona fide news exemption.

The deregulation irony

The confrontation reverses decades of mostly Republican-led deregulation that narrowed the FCC's reach over broadcasters. Since the 1980s, successive commissions relaxed ownership limits, eased content rules and shortened renewal scrutiny, shrinking the agency's toolkit for policing what stations air. The current FCC's willingness to invoke license revocation as a bargaining tool marks a return to a more interventionist posture the industry had largely assumed was retired.

What's at stake

The immediate fight is procedural. The FCC plans to move to dismiss the lawsuit as premature, arguing ABC must exhaust the administrative process before seeking review in the D.C. Circuit, citing the 1994 Thunder Basin Coal v. Reich decision. ABC counters that First Amendment claims belong in district court, citing the Supreme Court's Axon Enterprise v. FTC ruling. Judge AliKhan has said she will order the parties into court the next day if the FCC designates the renewals for an administrative hearing.

Beyond the eight licenses, the case carries implications for CBS News and NBC News, which face separate FCC investigations. A ruling that the commission overstepped could constrain Carr's broader campaign; a ruling for the agency would hand the administration a template for pressuring any broadcaster. For Disney, the licenses are valuable assets tied to local advertising revenue, giving the company a financial incentive to fight rather than capitulate. The last time the FCC moved this aggressively against a network's licenses was decades ago, before the deregulatory era — a precedent that cuts both ways as the two sides prepare for an October courtroom clash.

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