FCC Chairman Ties ABC’s License Renewal to Its Refusal to Air Trump’s Speech

President Donald Trump delivered a White House address on election security on July 16, during which he declassified intelligence he said showed Chinese interference in U.S. elections. ABC, NBC and CNN did not air the speech live on their main broadcast channels; ABC instead carried it on its ABC News Live streaming service and ABC News Radio [1]. Trump responded by saying the networks’ refusal amounted to a “plot” and that “fraud like this should mean a revocation of their licenses” [2]. On July 22, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr told reporters the commission’s open proceeding reviewing the broadcast licenses of ABC’s eight owned stations — in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Fresno, San Francisco, Raleigh-Durham, Houston and Philadelphia — would take the network’s decision into account, saying, “I think that when you have the president of the United States standing inside the White House delivering an important speech, I think that’s something that broadcasters should be carrying” [3, 4].

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, the agency’s sole Democratic member, pushed back the same day, saying “it is not for the FCC to tell broadcasters how to make their editorial decisions or what content to place on their networks or their local broadcast stations,” and argued “the real goal here is to reward the broadcasters willing to fall in line with this administration” [5].

Why It Sucks:

Conservatives

• Broadcasters snubbed a presidential address. Supporters argue a sitting president’s speech on election security from the White House is exactly the public-interest programming broadcasters holding free public airwave licenses are obligated to carry [1, 3, 4].
• Streaming isn’t the same as reaching the public. ABC diverting the speech to its streaming app and radio arm, rather than its broadcast signal, is seen as a deliberate way to bury it from the mass audience that watches over-the-air television [1].
• The review predates this one decision. Carr and allies frame the move as folding a new data point into an already-open licensing proceeding covering eight stations, not inventing a punishment specifically for this speech [3].

Democrats

• A regulator is grading editorial judgment. Commissioner Gomez argues broadcasters retain full discretion over their programming, and that the FCC weighing a single editorial call crosses into content control the agency was never meant to exercise [5].
• Compliance is being rewarded, not neutrality. Gomez contends the real effect is to pressure every station into favorable coverage of the administration to protect its license, calling it censorship in effect if not in name [5].
• The threat came from the president first. Trump publicly demanded the networks’ licenses be revoked days before Carr tied the review to the incident, which critics say shows the process followed the political demand rather than a neutral standard [2, 3].

ABC and Its Local Affiliate Stations

• Caught between two bad options. ABC opted to carry the speech on ABC News Live and ABC News Radio rather than its broadcast network, a middle path that still left it facing the same regulatory threat as if it had skipped the speech entirely [1, 3].
• Real commercial licenses are now on the table. The FCC’s review covers eight ABC-owned stations across major markets whose licenses carry substantial commercial value, meaning one editorial decision now has the potential to affect the company’s broadcast business [3, 4].
• Every future call gets harder. With regulators publicly tying coverage choices to license reviews, ABC and its local affiliates must now weigh any decision not to carry the White House live against the risk of a federal license challenge [3, 5].

Sources & Citations:

[1] Detroit News (Reuters): ABC, NBC, CNN do not air Trump’s election-security speech
[2] Axios: Trump threatens TV broadcast licenses after networks skip speech
[3] The Desk: FCC Chairman Carr: ABC decision to skip Trump speech will factor into license review
[4] Variety: FCC Chair Says ABC’s Decision to Not Broadcast Trump Speech Live Will Be Part of Agency’s Review of Its Station Licenses
[5] AOL (NewscastStudio): Democratic FCC commissioner says Trump ABC threat would fail in court