Reporter Asks Brendan Carr: Is There A Connection Between Action Against ABC And Jimmy Kimmel?

Added: 2026-05-03

[00:00:00]from the Guardian.

[00:00:01]I'm surprised the ABC question lasted to me, but I I'll I'll take it.

[00:00:04]>> You want to know about part 32 accounting rules, I'm sure.

[00:00:07]>> understand anything what she she said.

[00:00:09]Just covered TV news.

[00:00:12]So obviously the timing of the order to bring the ABC licenses up for early renewal has raised questions coming a day after President and his wife, you know, called for for Jimmy Kimmel to be fired. I guess do you see how people see that it might be connected to the Kimmel I mean let me ask it this way. Was there any connection between the Kimmel comments last week, his ill-timed joke, and the early renewal request? And I guess do you see that perception and are you are you do you disagree with the notion that it's, you know, causation there?

[00:00:47]Well, let me walk through the timeline cuz I think that's part of what the confusion has been in some of the reporting that I've seen. You can go all the way back to more than a year ago in March of last year where I wrote a letter to Disney saying that there was evidence and Disney has the opportunity will continue to have the opportunity to put in counter evidence. But there was evidence or allegations indicating that Disney through this sort of invidious form of DEI discrimination was creating as I specified in the letter to them racially segregated spaces inside the company. There was other allegations that went to Disney forcing racial and identity quotas or preferences. And I said at the time that if that pans out, that's a big deal.

[00:01:36]Um you know, we need to sort of end any form of discrimination based on race or protected class. It's in the very first portion of the Communications Act.

[00:01:46]Obviously the Supreme Court even just this week reaffirmed it. Uh that we can't be using race for preferences. And so we announced this investigation going all the way back to March. We said the Enforcement Bureau will be looking at it.

[00:02:00]I believe it was in June that we sent our first letter of inquiry to Disney on this topic and they provided us, you know, LOIs is our version of discovery or subpoenas effectively. They provided us with hundreds of documents at the time.

[00:02:17]And I've been consistent and very public. I tend, you know, not to be shy speaking about these things publicly and I've been saying for months that one thing that we're looking at in that investigation is an early renewal if that's where sort of investigative steps tell us it needs to go. And I said that publicly on multiple occasions going back weeks or months.

[00:02:40]Flash forward, we, you know, didn't think we got all the documents that we needed from Disney for our investigation.

[00:02:47]So we then issued a supplemental letter of inquiry I think in February of this year.

[00:02:52]Uh they had some period of time, 30 days or some period of time to respond.

[00:02:56]They asked for an extension of time of 30 days.

[00:02:59]And that extension of time ran until last week.

[00:03:04]And so last week Disney provided the FCC with a second round of production, another couple hundred pages of documents that our team was looking at and is looking at.

[00:03:15]And there's a view that Disney was not forthcoming with the agency in terms of its document production last week. And we don't need to hash out, you know, exactly why that is, but there is a concern that they weren't.

[00:03:29]And so after saying publicly for weeks and months that one next step in this investigation would be an early renewal and we got the document production at the end of the last week that we thought Disney was hitting us up with the okey-doke, we decided to take that next step. It also wasn't the first. We've been looking across the board at lots of different entities. So on Monday we issued an early renewal for a station group owner called Bridge News. Uh the staff recommendation to do that came out um in the middle of last week.

[00:04:04]We moved forward with the Disney one on Tuesday. Uh I think there's going to be another one here soon.

[00:04:10]On the radio side where we do a short renewal cycle as well. And so we've been very clear that we're holding broadcasters accountable to their obligations, not just public interest standards, but EEO obligations. The FCC has rules on the books. You can't discriminate based on race and gender and there's evidence that had been submitted that that's what Disney was doing. And so that's the timeline of the agency's actions. I understand that, you know, anything that we do is is now framed as in the wake of in the headlines and I understand that's how it is, but we got to make these decisions based on, you know, where we are in the investigations and what is best for next steps in that enforcement proceeding. And the headlines can be what the headlines are, but that was the basis for our decision.

[00:04:51]I mean the NAB said that the decision was nearly unprecedented, the request to do this early. I mean do you agree?

[00:04:58]>> a precedent from a day before us, so it was fairly, you know, recent precedent.

[00:05:01]Right.

[00:05:02]But I mean okay. I'm ask Sorry, one one final quick question. So the in February 2025 >> Broadcasters, you know, you know, NAB can say what NAB is going to say, I get it. You know, they got to they have a I guess Disney's a member of NAB, but, you know, broadcasters are not all, you know, with NAB on this. We had the National Religious Broadcasters that filed a petition with the FCC calling on the FCC to take action uh on Disney. So I think, you know, broadcasters are not in a unanimous group here and NAB knows very well that this was based on DEI conduct and not speech.