{"id":22023,"date":"2026-04-29T06:22:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T06:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/fcc-challenges-disney-station-licenses-as-kimmel-backlash-deepens-2\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T06:22:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T06:22:13","slug":"fcc-challenges-disney-station-licenses-as-kimmel-backlash-deepens-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/fcc-challenges-disney-station-licenses-as-kimmel-backlash-deepens-2\/","title":{"rendered":"FCC challenges Disney station licenses as Kimmel backlash deepens"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Federal Communications Commission launched an early review Tuesday of Disney’s broadcast station licenses, an unusually aggressive move that came a day after the president called on Disney-owned ABC to fire late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over another joke<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The process, known as an early license review<\/a>will tee up a lengthy legal review of Disney’s eight ABC-owned and operated station licenses, years before they were scheduled for FCC renewal. The commission is responsible for licensing local TV stations to broadcast network-level programming, such as ABC’s, over public airwaves across the country.<\/p>\n

But it is highly unusual for the federal agency to file early renewal orders.<\/p>\n

Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed FCC chair, triggered the process shortly after Kimmel once again drew the ire of the administration, this time for comments on his talk show well before a gunman attempted to breach the White House Correspondents’ Association<\/a> dinner.<\/p>\n

“Of course, our first lady Melania, is here. Look at her, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow,” Kimmel said in a sketch parodying the dinner, two days before the events that upended Trump’s first appearance at the annual gala in Washington.<\/p>\n

On Monday, after Kimmel’s clip surfaced, the first lady — who was seated on stage alongside the president when shots were fired Saturday night — denounced the skit as “hateful and violent.” She called on ABC<\/a> to “take a stand,” but stopped short of saying what actions the network should take.<\/p>\n

Her husband, however, was quick to demand ABC fire Kimmel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kimmel responded with a statement calling his gag “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.”<\/p>\n

Disney allowed “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” to air in its usual weeknight time slot Monday — a departure from the media conglomerate’s handling of the Kimmel controversy last fall over a joke related to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. In that case, the company suspended Kimmel’s show indefinitely before returning it to the airwaves less than a week later.<\/p>\n

Carr’s decision to drag ABC through a long and resource-draining review process was seen by critics as a means of inflicting the punishment Disney has declined to levy this time around.<\/p>\n

The move is “a political stunt and it won’t stick,” Anna Gomez, the FCC’s lone Democratic commissioner, wrote in a post on X after Traffic light<\/a> reported Carr was considering the early review. “Companies should challenge it head-on. The First Amendment is on their side.”<\/p>\n

Under the order, ABC must file license renewals for all of its licensed TV stations by May 28.<\/p>\n

Regardless of how the review process turns out, it will force ABC to pony up large sums of money and time to defend itself.<\/p>\n

“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,” a spokesperson for Disney told MS NOW upon receiving the FCC’s order Tuesday. <\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Sydney Carruth is a breaking news reporter covering national politics and policy for MS NOW. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at SydneyCarruth.46 or follow her work on X and Bluesky.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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Apr. 28, 2026, 6:04 PM EDT The Federal Communications Commission launched an early review Tuesday of Disney’s broadcast station licenses, an unusually aggressive move that came a day after the president called on Disney-owned ABC to fire late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over another joke. The process, known as an early license reviewwill tee up a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22024,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}