WASHINGTON—In response to the Federal Communications Commission’s ongoing investigation of whether the ABC-owned broadcast stations should lose their licenses, a number of former high-ranking FCC officials filed comments with the regulator attacking the probe as an unconstitutional attempt to quash news coverage critical of the Trump administration.

The filing by 13 former officials accuses FCC Chair Brendan Carr of using the early renewal proceeding as a pretense to punish ABC and Disney for broadcasting speech the Trump administration doesn’t like, calling it “a grave violation of both the Communications Act and the Constitution.”

“This early renewal proceeding follows a sustained campaign by Chairman Carr and the Trump administration of threatening legal sanctions against licensees whose speech President Trump dislikes,” the filing continued. “… [It] is in fact an assault on free speech disguised as regulatory process.”

The filing was signed by Kathryn C. Brown, Rachelle B. Chong, Mark S. Fowler, Jerald N. Fritz, Rosemary Harold, William T. Lake, Ruth Milkman, Dennis R. Patrick, Peter Pitsch, Alfred C. Sikes, Gloria Tristani, Thomas E. Wheeler, and Christopher J. Wright. They include former FCC chairs, commissioners, and senior staff who served under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

Some of the petitioners were part of a group that issued similar criticisms of the agency in November of 2025 in a filing asking the agency to rescind it’s so-called “news distortion” policy.

That petition was dismissed in June on procedural grounds.

The filing stems from a controversial push by the FCC to regulate content based on the public interest standards of broadcast station licenses.

That has led to investigations into ABC programs like “The View,” and statements by President Trump and Carr threatening the licenses of stations airing “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”. In April, the FCC issued an order requiring ABC to apply for early renewal of its owned stations.

The virtually unprecedented order calls for the review of licenses that are not up for renewal until 2028 at the earliest. Last week, Carr suggested ABC’s editorial decision to stream, rather than broadcast, Trump’s election lie speech could also be penalized.

“Chairman Carr seems to be laboring under the ill-conceived notion that broadcasters have only partial rights to free speech under the First Amendment,” said Mark Fowler, a Republican who served as Chairman of the FCC from 1981 to 1987. “Just because the FCC issues licenses doesn’t make it the speech police. With this senseless early renewal proceeding, Carr is demonstrating that he has completely lost touch not just with the role of the FCC, but also with his own job description.”

“This proceeding is an effort to punish ABC and Disney for poorly disguised political reasons," said Rachelle Chong, a Republican who served as Commissioner of the FCC from 1994 to 1997. “The early review and the allegations are unusual in a typical FCC license review which suggests it is more about a desire to silence speech.”

In November, a number of former officials from this coalition filed a petition with the FCC to consider rescinding the news distortion policy, a tool Chairman Carr has abused to chill free speech in the press. The petitioners are represented by counsel at Protect Democracy and TechFreedom, as well as Andrew Jay Schwartzman and Gigi Sohn.

The full filing is available here.

WASHINGTON—In a move that could fundamentally reshape the broadcast industry and usher in a wave of consolidation, the Federal Communications Commission will vote on August 6 on an Order that repeals the FCC’s 39% national television multiple ownership rule.

Chairman Brendan Carr announced the move in a op-ed in Breitbart and the decision was immediately applauded by broadcasters and the NAB who have lobbied for decades to eliminate the rule.

The Commission, however, won’t be voting on an outright appeal of the 39% national television multiple ownership rule. Rather, the FCC will vote to replace the national cap with a granular, case-by-case review.

The agency said that this will allow the FCC to approve deals that promote the public interest while allowing the agency to reject any deals that do not meet that standard. This action will foster a competitive media market, enhance localism, and promote investment in trusted sources of news and information.

In the op-ed, Carr blasted national media and broadcast networks by arguing that the American public had lost trust in their “partisan” news coverage and described the decision to eliminate the ownership rules as a way to reduce their market power.

“New York and Hollywood interests have steamrolled those local TV stations and the broader media market in recent years in ways that run directly counter to the regulatory framework that Congress and the FCC put in place,” Carr said.

Carr also placed the decision in the context of his ongoing attacks on what he sees as "biased" programming because larger local station groups would have more power to preempt network programming.

"Local TV stations today lack the power to preempt or refuse to air national programming that does not fit their communities’ values," he wrote. "National programmers are now charging local TV more and more for the privilege of airing their shows. Local TV stations are struggling to find the resources to produce live, trusted, and local news programming. Many local broadcast TV stations are getting hollowed out as a result and turning into little more than mouthpieces for programming produced in New York and Hollywood. That is not what Congress or the FCC intended."

The FCC's lone Democrat Anna Gomez signaled her intention of voting against the proposed Order in a statement saying it was bad policy and unlawful because the FCC does not have the authority to lift the cap.

“This unlawful effort to hand control of the public airwaves to billionaire buddies of this administration will destroy local newsrooms, silence community reporting, and drive-up costs for the American families who depend on local stations for news and emergency alerts," she said. "A free and diverse media landscape depends on real limits on how much of the public airwaves any one company can control, and this FCC is now poised to allow local broadcasters to sell those airwaves off to the highest bidder. Congress set the 39 percent national ownership cap in federal law, and only Congress has the authority to raise or eliminate it. The Commission cannot waive away that limit simply because these corporate behemoths want to get out from under it.”

Broadcasters, however applauded the proposal.

In response to the announcement, NAB president and CEO Curtis LeGeyt said “NAB applauds Chairman Carr and the FCC for moving forward with consideration of an order to eliminate the national television ownership cap. This reflects the understanding that decades-old ownership restrictions that apply only to broadcasters – and none of our competitors – are out of step with today’s media marketplace.  Eliminating  the  broadcast ownership cap will empower local stations, ensuring they can better compete, invest and serve their communities with the most trusted and freely available news and information, premier sports and entertainment.” 

A spokesperson for Nexstar also praised the upcoming vote by saying, “The FCC's decision to review the national television ownership cap is a welcome and long-overdue step toward bringing broadcast regulation into the modern media marketplace. These rules were last updated before Netflix streamed a single movie, before the first iPhone, and before Instagram existed, and they continue to single out local broadcasters based on a competitive landscape that disappeared with the VCR. No one would suggest limiting the reach of YouTube, Amazon, or CNN, yet local broadcasters are still forced to compete under rules written for a different century. Modernizing these outdated regulations will help ensure broadcasters can continue investing in local journalism and providing the free, trusted news and information that communities across America rely on every day.”

In a statement, Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley said that: “It should not be controversial to suggest that changed facts should lead to changed rules. We commend Chairman Carr for considering action to modernize the FCC’s rules setting the national ownership cap – and for his continued leadership in looking at ways to preserve local news by taking proactive steps to empower local broadcasters. Given the undeniable change and disruption to the media ecosystem, updating these rules to reflect the current landscape is common sense.”

The draft Order was no available when this article was posted on July 15. The FCC said the draft order will be made available on July 16 at https://www.fcc.gov/August2026.

WASHINGTON—Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr has announced the regulator will hold a July 22 vote on plans to hold an auction of 160 megahertz of spectrum in the Upper C-band (3.98-4.14 GHz) next year.

As part of the Working Families Tax Cut Act passed in 2025, Congress required the FCC to auction at least 100 MHz of C-band spectrum by July of 2027.

The National Association of Broadcasters had pushed the agency to limit the auction to 100 MHz of spectrum, arguing that the Upper C-band is already “operating at its practical limit” and that less spectrum would create a “Tetris-like problem” that could endanger the production of major live events.

In response, the FCC indicated it would accommodate video programming delivery by enabling upgrades in satellite technology and content distribution.

[Editor's note: More detailed comments regarding the impact of the proposals from TV Tech columnist Doug Lung are available below.]

In a June 18 letter to the FCC, satellite operator SES estimated that its “total cost to clear 160 MHz of Upper C-band spectrum will be approximately $3.6 billion, with $150 million allowed for contingencies.”

The FCC does not plan to release its estimated costs of the transition until after the July 22 vote.

The NAB declined to comment at this time.

The proposed rules would effectively harmonize terrestrial wireless operations across the entire C-Band to create a single “super-band” spanning 440 megahertz (3.70-4.14 GHz).

The plan also aims to maximize the amount of spectrum repurposed while establishing a speedy transition for incumbent satellite services and the creation of a successful coexistence environment for critical aviation safety systems in the adjacent band, the FCC said.

“While more complex than your average spectrum auction, the FCC moved from NPRM [Notice of Proposed Rulemaking] to Order in record time,” Carr said in a statement. “We have also coordinated with aviation and satellite stakeholders so that wireless providers can light up the Upper C-Band and provide service to most Americans by the end of 2030—ahead of many expectations.”

“The draft Order, which the Commission will vote on during our July 22 meeting, sets the stage for the FCC to auction 160 megahertz of prime, mid-band spectrum next year—exceeding the 100 megahertz minimum established in the law,” he added. “The Upper C-Band auction will also unify a big and contiguous swath of 440 megahertz of spectrum when combined with the Lower C-Band, which the FCC freed up during the previous Trump Administration.”

The FCC said that the auction is expected to raise “many billions of dollars for the U.S. Treasury.” as well.

As part of the announcement of the upcoming vote and auction, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a statement saying that it “is confident that the use of radio signals from the FCC's 5G auction can safely coexist with aviation after years of FAA-led testing and technical analysis. The FCC worked closely with the FAA while developing its auction rule, which contains key safeguards that protect the band of frequencies that aircraft radio altimeters use. These safeguards include limiting the power of the auctioned 5G signals to levels the FAA has determined are safe for aviation; protecting the altimeter band with a buffer band between it and the band of frequencies that will be auctioned; and limiting the height of 5G transmission towers. Additionally, the FCC rule would ensure the functionality of key altimeter-based alerting systems including Terrain Avoidance Warning Systems.”

Later this summer, the FAA said it will issue its own rule to require aircraft altimeter upgrades to ensure altimeters can safely operate with signals from the 5G wireless signals that will be auctioned.

The FCC stressed that the draft Order, Order of Proposed Modification, and Order on Reconsideration, responds to the surging demand for additional valuable mid-band spectrum for wireless services and puts America on a path towards massive gains that could result in at least $264 billion in GDP, 1.5 million new jobs, and $388 billion in consumer surplus by freeing up additional spectrum.

The 2027 Upper C-Band auction will ultimately result in a 440 megahertz contiguous block of spectrum for the provision of wireless services by combining the Lower C-Band (3.7-3.98 GHz) and now the Upper C-Band (3.98-4.14 GHz).

The draft item, which will be made available to the public on July 1, would make available 160 megahertz of valuable Upper C-Band spectrum through the auction of 3,248 new flexible-use spectrum licenses throughout the contiguous United States.

It also proposes that winning bidders will be responsible for transition costs and incentive payments for in-band licensees, as well as rebates for the purchase and installation of upgraded radio altimeters. In addition, the draft item would allow winning bidders to commence wireless services in the Upper C-Band starting in December 2030 for top-75 markets, and in remaining markets starting July 2031.

The FCC also noted that specific dollar amounts on costs, incentives, and rebates have been redacted from the order prior to the July 22 vote given the sensitive nature of this type of financial information. The agency will release the figures publicly with the Commission’s vote.

The draft Order, Order of Proposed Modification and Order on Reconsideration will be made available to the public on July 1 via FCC.gov.

WASHINGTON—In the wake of ABC's efforts to combat an Federal Communications Commission probe into whether “The View” deserves a “news exemption” from equal political time rules, fan have been flooding the regulator with comments. The agency's website had 27,885 of them, mostly in support of the show, as of 6 p.m. ET June 23.

ABC reported that most of those came in following ABC’s public push to mobilize fans to defend the show. During the Monday June 22 episode of "The View" ABC began airing an ad calling for viewers to file comments with the FCC. The ad encourages viewers to scan a QR code which directs them to the FCC site where they can file comments.

The case stems from a wider policy by the agency to enforce public interest rules on broadcasters deemed to be airing biased news coverage. That has led to ongoing investigations by the FCC into coverage of President Trump by stations owned by ABC, CBS and NBC.

FCC Chair Brendan Carr has repeatedly defended the agency’s authority to sanction stations and possibly even yank their licences for violating public interest standards even though a number of former FCC commissioners and staffers have called the policy “unconstitutional.”

Separately, the Media Bureau issued an advisory in January casting doubt on the 20-year-old exemption classifying late-night programming and talk shows as news programs, which means that they are not subject to equal time rules. The advisory said that stations airing `partisan' talk shows and late night programs must comply with equal time rules.

In May, the FCC’s media bureau issued a public notice asking for comments on whether ABC’s “The View” is a “bona fide news interview program” exempt from its equal time rules.

The FCC is also investigating Disney’s ABC for its DEI practices and has also ordered the ABC- owned stations to file for early renewal of their licenses. ABC blasted the early renewal demand as “unconstitutional retaliation” for news coverage that has been critical of the Trump administration.

So far the public comments to the FCC’s inquiry into `The View’ indicated significant opposition to Chairman Carr’s policies across the ideological spectrum, including free speech advocates, civil rights groups, conservative groups, journalism organizations, and consumer advocates. Many warned that revisiting the FCC's longstanding precedent amounted to an attack on free speech, with implications far beyond a single TV show.

ACLU, Center for Democracy & Technology, Future of Free Speech, National Coalition Against Censorship argued that the Commission is abandoning 40 years of precedent and that “this proceeding violates the constitutional rights of all our nation’s broadcasters, as well as the public who relies upon them for their access to news and information.”

Likewise, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) noted that “no living former FCC Commissioner has endorsed Chairman Carr’s current view of his regulatory authority, while a bipartisan group of former Chairmen and Commissioners, along with other high-level staff, have condemned it.”

Free Press complained that the “Commission’s actions have poisoned the well, depriving KTRK of a fair enforcement process, and depriving ABC of fair administration of Section 315(a) as it pertains to The View. Carr’s agency’s actions have been capricious, selective, and corrupt. The Commission is targeting KTRK and ABC with punitive action for its lawful speech, in order to chill ABC’s and other broadcaster’s First Amendment-protected speech.”

The group also stressed that while “Carr claims that he’s simply looking out for the public’s interest, and not carrying out a politically motivated vendetta against ABC and the President’s enemies…this claim quickly falls apart when considering Carr’s explicit efforts here to exclude right-wing talk radio broadcast programs from his review of the equal opportunities rule.”

WASHINGTON—The Walt Disney Co.’s ABC-owned stations called a Federal Communications Commission order that they file early license renewals “unlawful, arbitrary, and unconstitutional.”

In a letter attached to one of the license renewals, submitted on May 28, ABC-owned WABC-TV New York noted that the “Commission had not demanded early renewal in over five decades. And it has never before demanded simultaneous license renewal applications from a group of stations commonly owned with a network as it has here.”

“The Order is inconsistent with a legitimate exercise of investigative authority and is plainly incompatible with the First Amendment,” the letter said. “Worse, the Order opens the door to an assault on the Station’s license, while the Commission searches for a legal pretext to achieve its desired goal. This effort to suppress speech under the guise of bureaucratic process must not prevail. WABC files this application without waiving any rights, and calls on the Commission to rescind the Order.”

As previously reported, the FCC issued an order in late April requiring Disney’s ABC-owned stations must file for an early license renewal by May 28. The order referred to FCC’s ongoing investigation of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies at Disney but it follows months of comments by President Donald Trump and FCC Chair Brendan Carr suggesting that the stations should lose their licenses over comments made by network late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.

In its May 28 letter to the FCC, Disney's WABC alleged that the Commission's investigation into DEI was simply a pretext "to punish the Station for speech the government does not like."

The May 28 filings by Disney’s ABC-owned stations came on the same day that the FCC issued a public notice asserting wide-ranging powers to regulate broadcast content under the rubric of “public interest” standards. Those public interest standards include the requirement that "broadcasters are also prohibited from engaging in news distortion," the agency insisted.

In response to the FCC’s claim that legal precedent allows it to regulate news content, the Commission’s lone Democrat, Commissioner Anna Gomez, asserted: “The ‘public interest’ does not mean this administration's interests. Broadcasters should ignore these latest threats and stiffen their spine.“

Gomez also blasted the FCC’s order requiring Disney to file for early renewal of its broadcast licenses. “Disney and its ABC stations are the latest victims of this administration's campaign of censorship and control,” she said. “I am glad to see them expose the FCC's actions as nothing more than naked political retribution and an unlawful assault on free speech and a free press.”

Disney also faces a separate FCC investigation into possible violations of equal time rules for political candidates by "The View". In response to that investigation, ABC filed a sternly worded petition earlier this month arguing that the “Commission’s actions threaten to upend decades of settled law and practice and chill critical protected speech, both with respect to ‘The View’ and more broadly.”

WABC-TV’s May 28 letter filed a number of similar arguments regarding free speech and censorship. More specifically, the station questioned the validity of the FCC's DEI investigation into Disney, which prompted the order demanding early license renewal applications.

Before tne order was issued, the letter noted, the Enforcement Bureau had already served a string of inquiries and Disney had produced more than 11,000 pages of documents on a mutually agreed schedule without hearing any complaints from the FCC on its compliance.

“It is not credible to now declare the early renewal process `essential' to the same investigation, particularly when after releasing the Order, the Enforcement Bureau issued yet another request for information to which the Company is required to respond less than 24 hours after the instant filing,” the letter said. “The early renewal procedure is not an investigative tool and adds nothing to the Commission’s investigative capacity.”

The letter also strongly pushes back against possible discriminatory behavior at the ABC stations.

“The Order purports to investigate `possible violations' of the `prohibition on unlawful discrimination,' but never identifies what violation it had in mind,” the letter said. “The Commission has never articulated—let alone adopted through notice-and-comment rulemaking—any new compliance standard under its broadcast Equal Employment Opportunity (“EEO”) requirements, which focus on non-discrimination and providing access to opportunities for those from underrepresented groups. It has never stated whether or when diversity, equity and inclusion (“DEI”) practices violate a Commission rule or warrant ordinary punishment, much less the extraordinary punishment of a demand for early license renewal A licensee cannot comply with a standard that is announced nowhere, defined nowhere, and exists nowhere.”

“In truth, the Station has acted consistently with the Commission’s EEO requirements,” the station said. “Yet it is now being punished under an interpretation the Commission invented but has never promulgated or even fully articulated—one that turns the longstanding EEO rules on their head. A licensee cannot be held to a standard it was never given notice of—that is not enforcement, it is arbitrary, capricious, and a denial of due process. And even if the Commission were to eventually declare that the Station committed an EEO rule violation—a finding that the Station in no way concedes—jeopardizing the Station’s license would be grossly disproportionate to any such violation, especially one premised on an unarticulated standard.

“The only plausible reason to issue the Order is to punish the Station for speech the government does not like,” the letter concluded. “Commissioner Gomez recognized in her May 11, 2026 letter what the record makes plain: The Commission’s actions against Disney and ABC constitute ‘not a series of coincidental regulatory actions but a sustained, coordinated campaign of censorship and control, carried out through the weaponization of the FCC’s authority as a federal regulator and aimed at pressuring a free and independent press and all media into submission.’ This is not a partisan point. Senator Ted Cruz [R-Texas] called one of Chairman Carr’s threats to broadcasters ‘dangerous as hell’ and warned that “[g]overnment officials threatening adverse consequences for disfavored content is an unconstitutional coercion that chills protected speech.’”

The filings can be found here, with WABC-TV’s letter to the FCC objecting to the early renewal at the bottom of the page.

WASHINGTON—In a wide-ranging Public Notice reminding broadcasters of their public interest obligations, the Federal Communications Commission stressed that “spectrum auctions routinely bring in billions of dollars for the same spectrum broadcasters use for free” and insisted that the agency has the authority to investigate, fine and potentially remove broadcast licenses for violations of broadcast public interest obligations.

Those public interest obligations include the requirement that "broadcasters are also prohibited from engaging in news distortion," the agency noted.

Though not signed and not explicitly issued in response to any given criticism, the document amounts to an unusual public defense from the GOP-led commission for the regulatory approach taken under FCC Chair Brendan Carr. As previously reported, he has been criticized by Democrats in Congress, former FCC officials and FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez for attempting to use the agency's enforcement powers to limit "free speech" and chill broadcast news coverage that is critical of the Trump administration.

“Federal law requires broadcasters to comply with a basic and fundamental obligation—they must operate in the public interest,” the public notice argued. “Congress first enshrined this concept in the law nearly 100 years ago, and it charged the FCC with the responsibility of ensuring that broadcasters only obtain and maintain a license to the extent they are operating in a manner that serves the `public interest, convenience, and necessity.’”

In addition to its statutory authority to enforce “public interest” requirements, the Public Notice argued that “spectrum is a finite public resource bound by the limits of physics” and an extremely valuable asset.

“Spectrum auctions routinely bring in billions of dollars for the same spectrum broadcasters use for free,” the agency reminded broadcasters, adding that “proceeds from the auction for broadcast television spectrum that was reallocated for wireless broadband use yielded $19.8 billion in revenue, including $10.05 billion for winning broadcast bidders and more than $7 billion to be deposited to the U.S. Treasury for deficit reduction.”

“In exchange, broadcasters are required to operate in the public interest of the communities they serve,” the agency noted. “It is this service as a public trustee—and the corresponding obligation to offer programming responsive to the needs and interests of the local communities they are licensed to serve—that makes broadcasters unique and distinguishes them from other programmers. It is an obligation that broadcasters take on voluntarily, in exchange for the privilege of holding a license to operate using the public airwaves.”

The Public Notice also laid a variety of legal arguments affirming the regulator’s controversial conclusion that it has the power to ensure that broadcast programming is in the public interest.

“Programming decisions by broadcasters must be made in service of the public and be responsive to the needs of the local community they are licensed to serve, not the private interests of national networks,” the FCC insisted.

“No broadcaster has a ‘right’ to use the public spectrum,” the notice stated, adding that “indeed, the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that certain FCC regulatory efforts in furtherance of its statutory mandate `enhance rather than abridge the freedoms of speech and press protected by the First Amendment.’” and that “the courts have recognized that there are limits on broadcasters’ First Amendment rights.”

The FCC concluded that “the mere denial of a license because ‘the public interest’ requires it ‘is not a denial of free speech.’”

“Where the Commission finds that a broadcaster has failed to serve the public interest, the Commission may take appropriate action, including enforcement action,” require a licensee to file an early license renewal application,” as it has done with ABC’s stations, and apply the “public interest” rules when considering mergers or station sales.

As examples of the FCC’s authority to regulate content, the notice cited its “main studio” rule, intended to ensure service obligations were met by placing a station’s production center within the community it served,and its “program origination” rule, which required stations to originate a minimum percentage of its non-network programming from its main studio or elsewhere within its community of license.

“The purpose of the rule was to encourage locally-oriented programming in furtherance of the Commission’s public interest standard and localism mandate,” the Notice argued.

It also highlighted rules relating to the station’s online public inspection file issues/program lists, and insisted “broadcasters are also prohibited from engaging in news distortion, must provide equal opportunity to political candidates and are prohibited from airing obscene, indecent and profane content.”

“The Commission will continue to engage in a robust review of applications to ensure compliance with our rules and determine whether broadcasters have met their obligation to operate in the public interest,” the notice concluded. “We encourage broadcasters to review their current practices and confirm that they fully align with their statutory public interest obligation.”

In the final sentence, the Notice also stressed that the agency determination to both investigate public-interest violations and enforce those rules in ways that could involve taking away broadcast licenses.

“The Commission will not hesitate to exercise its statutory authority to ensure that broadcasters either fulfill their public interest obligation or provide the privilege of being a broadcast licensee to someone that will fulfill that duty,” the Notice stated.

Carr also reiterated the agency’s authority in a post on X:

In response, Gomez asserted: “The ‘public interest’ does not mean this administration's interests. Broadcasters should ignore these latest threats and stiffen their spine.“

WASHINGTON—Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr announced a number of staff promotions that will see Adam Chan, Anthony Patrone, Allison Howell, Connor Glisson, Erin Boone and Alex Sanjenis assume wider roles.

“The FCC’s talented staff represent the best in public service,” Carr said. “I continue to be impressed every day by their dedication and the great results they deliver for the American people. I am honored to announce these promotions.”

The promotions include a new Acting Chief of the FCC’s Media Bureau, which rules on many issues facing broadcasters, including station license renewals and ownership caps.

The FCC described the promotions as follows:

• Senior National Security Counsel. Adam Chan has been serving as Chairman Carr’s National Security Counsel, and he is now promoted to Senior National Security Counsel.
• Senior Counsel. Anthony Patrone has been serving as a Legal Advisor in the Office of Chairman Carr, and he is now promoted to a Senior Counsel to Chairman Carr. Anthony’s portfolio will include advising the Chairman on matters before the Enforcement Bureau.
• Legal Advisor. Allison Howell has been serving as an Attorney Advisor in the Office of Chairman Carr, and she is now promoted to a Legal Advisor to Chairman Carr. Allison’s portfolio will include advising the Chairman on matters before the Media Bureau.
• Director, Office of Legislative Affairs. Connor Glisson has been serving as a Senior Legal Advisor in the front office of the FCC’s Space Bureau, and he is now promoted to Director of the FCC’s Office of Legislative Affairs. Previously, Connor served as Tech Policy Counsel to Senator Marsha Blackburn and as Legislative Correspondent to Senator David Vitter. In addition to his experience on Capitol Hill, Connor also brings years of valuable experience from his prior roles in the private sector and in public service, including at USAC, NTIA, and FCC.
• Deputy Chief of Staff. Erin Boone has been serving as a Senior Counsel to Chairman Carr. She will now serve as a Deputy Chief of Staff covering a range of issues in coordination with the FCC’s Chief of Staff, Scott Delacourt.
• Acting Bureau Chief. Alex Sanjenis has been serving as a Deputy Bureau Chief in the FCC’s Media Bureau. He will now serve as the Acting Chief of the FCC’s Media Bureau.

Full bios are available on the FCC’s website at: https://www.fcc.gov/about/leadership/brendan-carr/staff

WASHINGTON—Ben Arden, formerly a special counsel in the FCC’s Media Bureau, has joined the National Association of Broadcasters as senior vice president and deputy general counsel.

Arden will lead NAB’s policy and legal advocacy before the Federal Communications Commission, the group said, advocating broadcasters’ priorities on such issues as media ownership, competition policy and the evolving media marketplace. He’ll report to Rick Kaplan, NAB’s chief legal officer and executive VP of legal and regulatory affairs.

“Ben brings an exceptional depth of experience in communications law and policy, along with a proven ability to navigate complex regulatory challenges,” NAB President and CEO Curtis LeGeyt said. “His leadership and expertise will be invaluable as we continue advocating for policies that ensure local television and radio stations can compete and thrive.”

As FCC Media Bureau special counsel, Arden advised Carr’s office and FCC senior leaders on a wide range of issues, including media ownership, transaction reviews, foreign ownership, retransmission consent and emerging technologies, NAB said.

Arden was with the FCC for 15 years and held multiple leadership roles. Prior to the Media Bureau post, he served as chief of staff and legal adviser to then-commissioner Carr, playing a role in shaping communications policy and coordinating with congressional officers and industry stakeholders, NAB said.

Prior to the FCC, Arden was an associate attorney at law firm Williams Mullen, representing communications clients before Congress, the FCC and other federal agencies, NAB said. He earned his law degree from Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law and a bachelor’s degree in psychology and political science from Arizona State University.

WASHINGTON—In the wake of ongoing calls by President Trump for ABC to fire late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, the Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau has significantly escalated its ongoing investigation of the Walt Disney Company by issuing an order that Disney’s ABC-owned stations must file for an early license renewal by May 28.

Asking for an early license renewal is extremely rare and almost never involves network-owned stations.

In a order issued on April 28, 2026, the FCC referred to its ongoing investigation of Disney DEI policies but the move follows months of comments by President Trump and FCC Chair Brendan Carr suggesting that the ABC stations should lose their licenses over comments made by ABC’s late night host Jimmy Kimmel.

In the last 14 months, The FCC has also launched highly controversial investigations of ABC-, CBS- and NBC-owned stations into allegations of “biased” news coverage of President Donald Trump. Since becoming FCC Chair, Carr has repeatedly argued that the regulator has the power to punish broadcasters and potentially even remove broadcast licenses from stations violating “public interest” and “news distortion” rules. (TV Tech’s coverage of that petition is available here.)

The order subjecting the ABC owned stations to an early license renewal process came the same day that the RTDNA and a number of former FCC officials filed court papers attacking the FCC to attempting to chill free speech by threatening licenses of broadcast stations who provided critical coverage of the Trump administration.

Carr has also made a crackdown on DEI one of his signature policy pushes. In an April 27 interview he called Disney's DEI policies "pretty bad. There’s evidence suggests that Disney literally was dividing and categorizing employees based on race and gender."

Carr has also opened up DEI investigations of Comcast and required companies seeking regulatory approval for major deals to end their DEI policies. To obtain approval of mergers, Verizon, Paramount, Nexstar, Charter, AT&T and others have all agreed to abandon their efforts to promote diversity.

In the April 28 order, The FCC said that it has “been investigating The Walt Disney Company, its American Broadcasting Company, and its subsidiaries for compliance with its obligations as a licensed broadcaster. Specifically, 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. While Disney’s ABC has purported to respond to two FCC Letters of Inquiry (LOIs) as part of this investigation, the FCC has determined that additional actions are appropriate at this time.”

The agency also said that “FCC rules provide that whenever the FCC regards an application for a renewal of a license as essential to the proper conduct of an investigation, the FCC has the authority to call the broadcaster’s licenses in for early renewal. Doing so both allows the FCC to conduct its ongoing investigation and enables the FCC to ensure that the broadcaster has been meeting its public interest obligations more broadly.”

In a statement, ABC told the Guardian that “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. 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. Our focus remains, as always, on serving viewers in the local communities where our stations operate.”

The regulator said the license renewals would have to be filed by May 28.

In a post on X, Commissioner Anna Gomez, the agency's only Democrat, blasted the order as a "political stunt."

In a statement, Free Press Co-CEO Jessica J. González complained that “Carr will try to dress up this latest attack like a legitimate FCC procedure, but his motivations are clear. He is using his position of power to silence dissent at the president’s beck and call. This extraordinary and unconstitutional attack on the media is nothing more than another favor to the most fragile president in U.S. history. The FCC’s ongoing attack on lawful and important diversity, equity and inclusion programs is immoral. The timing of this move suggests unconstitutional retribution for a joke Donald Trump didn’t like. Either way, this dangerous attack on free speech won’t stand up to any First Amendment test. We’ve seen Carr violate his oath to uphold the Constitution again and again. It’s time for Congress to impeach him."

She also stressed that "for its part, ABC and Disney leadership need to stand strong on behalf of their First Amendment right to air content without government intrusion and censorship. Buckling in advance to pressure by this administration and its obsequious FCC chairman didn’t work for the broadcaster when it suspended Kimmel last year. It would be a grave mistake to buckle in advance again to these kinds of chilling government threats from Trump’s censorship czar.”

TV Tech will be filing more comments and details as they come in.

Critics of attempts by the Federal Communications Commission to threaten broadcasters by investigating them for violating “news distortion” policies have gone to court to force the regulator to take a formal stand on the issue and respond to November 2025 petition to repeal those controversial policies.

On April 28, a group of former FCC chairs, commissioners and senior-level staff, joined by the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA), filed a petition for a writ of mandamus in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

The filing asks the court to compel the FCC to respond to a November 2025 petition to repeal the News Distortion Policy.

The petition was in response to several highly controversial investigations by the FCC into allegations of “biased” news coverage of President Donald Trump by ABC, CBS and NBC and comments by FCC Chair Brendan Carr that the regulator has the power to punish broadcasters and potentially even remove broadcast licenses from stations violating “public interest” and “news distortion” rules. (TV Tech’s coverage of that petition is available here.)

In response to the November petition, Carr indicated that he does not plan to repeal the news distortion policy. “How about no,” he posted on X.

Carr has repeatedly argued that the public interest rules for obtaining broadcast licenses give the FCC authority to investigate stations airing “biased” newscasts and programming. Several affiliate stations are currently being investigated, but the agency has yet to take any formal action.

“FCC Chair Brendan Carr’s refusal to present the petition to the Commission for a vote is not only a procedural failure, but also an active threat to the First Amendment,” said Conor Gaffney, counsel at Protect Democracy. “The FCC is legally obligated to respond to our petition. We are asking the court to hold it to that obligation.”

If the writ is granted, the FCC will be required to take a formal position on whether to repeal or uphold the news distortion policy, which critics say FCC Chair Brendan Carr has used to chill free speech in the press by threatening to yank broadcast licenses.

“The free press is called the fourth estate for a reason—it exists to hold powerful leaders in the legislature, judiciary, and executive branch to account. Journalists must be able to safely seek the truth and publish facts, without fear of retaliation,” said Tara Puckey, president and CEO of RTDNA, a major professional organization devoted to broadcast and digital journalism. “Any policy that enables the federal government to punish broadcasters for their coverage is an existential threat to independent journalism. The stakes are too high for the FCC to remain silent.”

Besides the RTDNA, other petitioners include: former FCC member Rachelle B. Chong; former PBS president Ervin S. Duggan; former FCC chairs Mark S. Fowler, Alfred C. Sikes and Thomas E. Wheeler; former FCC general counsel Christopher J. Wright; Kathryn C. Brown, chief of staff to former FCC Chairman William Kennard; and Jerald N. Fritz, a former chief of staff to Fowler and longtime broadcast executive.

The petitioners write that “in the context of the midterm elections, which are fast approaching, the Chairman’s naked attempts to suppress coverage the Administration views as unfavorable pose serious threats to the First Amendment and to our democratic order. …The Chairman’s abuse of the news distortion policy itself distorts the information voters have to make their choice, threatening the fairness of the midterms.”

Several former FCC officials named as petitioners issued statements condemning the policy:

• “The News Distortion Policy is a loaded gun that Chairman Carr is using to threaten broadcasters,” said former FCC Chairman Mark Fowler (R, 1981-87). “Until it is repealed, we will not have a free press. Every day the agency delays is another day the FCC can use this policy in bad faith. The press that uses air and electrons should be as free as the press that uses paper and ink.”
• “The FCC’s failure to act is no accident. As long as the News Distortion Policy remains, the FCC Chair could continue to misuse it to police perceived media bias, discourage broadcasters from covering controversial stories, and punish outlets that air content the Trump administration dislikes,” said former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler (D, 2013-17). “The agency must answer for its attempts to censor the press.”
• “When unlikely allies share an opinion, that opinion eclipses partisanship and ideology,” said former Commissioner Rachelle Chong (R, 1994-1997).“You could not find a group of petitioners with more divergent political beliefs than this one, and yet, we all agree on one thing: The news distortion policy should be repealed. The First Amendment of the Constitution protects the right to free speech and freedom of the press by broadcasters.”

The petitioners are represented by counsel at Protect Democracy and TechFreedom, as well as Andrew Jay Schwartzman and Gigi Sohn.

Read the full petition here.

LAS VEGAS—In extensive remarks at the 2026 NAB Show on Monday, Federal Communications Commissioner Olivia Trusty took up one of the most divisive and controversial issues facing the regulator in remarks entitled “Finding the Angel of Public Interest.”

In the last two years, the issue of the “public interest” standards governing broadcast licenses has prompted a heated debate. On one side, President Trump and FCC Chair Brendan Carr have threaten to yank broadcast licenses over what they see as “biased” news coverage; on the other, critics like Commissioner Anna Gomez contend the regulator is engaged in an unconstitutional campaign against free speech to silence news coverage critical of the current administration.

In a rare, possibly unprecedented example of obscure FCC rules and precedents making their way into popular culture, this controversy has already produced Late Night comedy skits and heated cable news debates.

In measured remarks that carefully analyzed the issue and the importance of broadcasters in providing news, emergency information and other content that is important to the public, Trusty largely avoided the more ideological aspects of that debate.

Instead Trusty took her inspiration from a 1998 speech at the NAB Show by then-Commissioner Michael Powell who Trusty said “described his planned approach to advancing the public interest in broadcasting. As part of that speech, he said he had hoped for a visit from what he called “the angel of the public interest,” someone who might appear and offer guidance on how to apply that standard. Although this angel never reportedly appeared to Commissioner or Chairman Powell, advancing the public interest in broadcasting is just as relevant today as it was 30 years ago.”

In her remarks, Trusty stressed that broadcasters occupy a unique place in the media in that they receive licenses from the FCC to use spectrum for broadcasts, which distinguishes them from other players, such as cable operators, streaming services, podcasts, cable networks and digital outlets who are not licensed.

Trusty said this subjects them to some public interest requirements that are laid out in legislation or FCC rules governing such issues as hours of operation, prohibitions on obscene content, limits on advertising in children’s shows, misuse of emergency alerts, closed captioning and accessibility, payola, equal employment opportunities and other areas.

In terms of those longstanding public interest duties, she cited the statutory “equal opportunities” requirement for airtime of political candidates, which she said is governed by “decades of FCC precedent” that offers “a practical case-by-case framework.”

Another key aspect of the public interest standard is localism. “For example, licensees may not enter into network agreements that prevent them from preempting programming that is `unsatisfactory or unsuitable or contrary to the public interest,’ or when other programming is `of greater local or national importance.’ In other words, broadcasters are expected to respond to the unique needs of their communities, not simply transmit identical programming nationwide without considering local circumstances…Commission precedent also reinforces this duty. For that, we can look to the Commission’s news distortion policy, which reflects a simple principle: a station cannot truly serve its community if it knowingly distorts the news about important events.”

Both of those arguments were used by Carr to threaten licenses of broadcasters who aired late night talk shows and other content he deemed to have violated “news distortion policy” as biased.

Put more positively, she added that "broadcasters are at their best when they serve as trusted sources of local news…Broadcasters are also at their best when providing critical information during emergencies…And broadcasters are at their best as a free, universally accessible source of programming."

“Today’s media marketplace includes many forms of communication that do not carry the same public interest obligations, like MVPDs, streaming services, podcasts, and countless digital platforms,” she said. “But because broadcasters have accepted public interest responsibilities as part of their licenses, they occupy a unique place in the media ecosystem. That makes it critical for the FCC to ensure that broadcasters not only survive in today’s competitive environment, but thrive.”

“In a marketplace where competition and technologies are evolving, the FCC needs to get its policies right for broadcasters and the communities they serve – from ownership regulation, to the principles guiding the ATSC 3.0 transition, to continually reevaluating its regulations to ensure their benefits truly outweigh their burdens,” she added. “If the Commission achieves that goal, broadcasters will have both the ability and the right incentives to keep serving the public interest, which I see as the best way of advancing those objectives.”

As part of that, she explicitly stated her support for changing station ownership rule. “It also means updating, or eliminating, rules, consistent with our statutory authority, that may have made sense decades ago but now stand in the way of innovation,” she said.

Beyond that she also indicated her support for Carr’s initiatives to give local stations more power over the programming they air and strengthen their bargaining position in negotiations with national networks.

She also weighed in on sports programming, which is extremely important in financing the local news produced by broadcasters and indicated her willingness to examine anti-trust exemptions given to professional sport leagues. “But when sports migrate behind a streaming paywall, that public interest is no longer being served, and the need for government immunity is less clear,” she said.

Trusty also highlighted her support for the work by broadcasters on improving public safety and developing the Broadcast Positioning System. “ATSC 3.0 can enable a GPS alternative known as the Broadcast Positioning System,” she said. “Stations also are experimenting with advanced emergency alert capabilities using ATSC 3.0.”

Those examples illustrate the importance of FCC policies to strengthen local broadcasters at a time when they face serious competitive and financial pressures, she stressed.

“When it comes to news, local broadcasters continue to score highest in public trust, despite the challenges they face,” she said. “But more than half of local broadcast TV newsrooms reportedly are unprofitable on a stand-alone basis, and even as broadcasters see potential for new technologies like AI to improve the mechanics and efficiency of distributing their content, their newsrooms confront new burdens responding to third party reports based on AI-generated hoaxes or misinformation that can be prevalent on social media. A strong financial footing will better position broadcasters to meet and overcome those challenges.”

“If the FCC gets the policy framework right, supporting broadcasters, while ensuring accountability to the law, FCC rules, and longstanding legal doctrine, I believe broadcasters themselves could serve as the `angels of the public interest,’ delivering trusted information, connection, and service to the local communities that rely on them,” she concluded. “Achieving that distinction will require continued work ahead to empower broadcasters to compete on a level playing field while cementing an unwavering commitment to serve the public interest both now and in the future.”

WASHINGTON—Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr announced a tentative agenda for the April Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Thursday, April 30, 2026 that closely follows his recent blog post outlining major issues the agency is addressing in April.

The FCC described the items on the agenda as follows:

• Modernizing Spectrum Sharing for Satellite Broadband. The Commission will consider a Report and Order that would promote efficient spectrum sharing between geostationary and non-geostationary satellite systems. To take account of today’s satellite technology and operations and to promote expanded services to American consumers, the item would update the decades-old framework for how non-geostationary and geostationary satellite systems share spectrum. (SB Docket No. 25-157)
• Combatting Robocalls Through Enhanced Know-Your-Customer Requirements. The Commission will consider a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to enhance existing “Know-Your-Customer” (KYC) requirements by seeking comment on the information that originating providers must obtain from customers before they make calls, how providers should verify that information, and proposing to better set penalties for violations of these requirements proportionate to harm. This would fill gaps between general KYC requirements and the types of rigorous steps necessary to protect consumers from illegal calls. (CG Docket No. 17-59, 02-278)
• Ensuring Integrity and Security in Electronic Device Testing. The Commission will consider a Second Report and Order, Order on Reconsideration, and Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking aimed at strengthening national security and reciprocity through the equipment authorization program. The item would incentivize U.S. and allied testing and certification by creating a fast‑track review process for applications tested in Trusted Test Labs, direct updates to post‑market surveillance procedures, bolster enforcement tools, and establish confidential channels for industry to report potential violations or national security concerns. (ET Docket No. 24-136)
• Protecting Against National Security Threats in Domestic Telecommunications Service. The Commission will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would continue its efforts to protect the nation’s telecommunications networks by proposing to exclude entities identified on the “Covered List” from providing domestic interstate telecommunications services pursuant to blanket authority under section 214 of the Communications Act, and seek comment on other potential exclusions from blanket authority under section 214 and other related measures. (WC Docket No. 26-82)
• Establishing a New E-Rate Competitive Bidding Portal. The Commission will consider a Report and Order and Order on Reconsideration that would strengthen the integrity of the E-Rate program by establishing a competitive bidding portal and adopt several proposals aimed at streamlining and simplifying E-Rate program procedures. The portal would be used by applicants and service providers during the procurement process beginning in funding year 2028. (WC Docket No. 21-455; CC Docket No. 02-6)
• Amending the Audible Crawl Rule. The Commission will consider a Third Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to amend the Audible Crawl Rule and eliminate a technically unworkable provision while ensuring that people who are visually impaired continue receiving the critical emergency information they need. (MB Docket No. 12-107)

A list of materials providing more information on each of the items is available here.

WASHINGTON—Following a visit to a test site in Texas to review cutting edge demos of drone and counter-drone technologies, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan is highlighting the agency's efforts to implement President Trump’s proposals to achieve “American drone dominance” and has announced that the FCC is working closely with U.S. drone and UAV companies to carry out the administration’s policies.

As the next major step in the Commission’s work, the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (WTB) and the Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) issued a public notice, seeking input on an array of reforms the Commission might take to achieve U.S. supremacy in drone technology, manufacturing, and operations.

“President Trump has been clear that the Administration will act to secure our airspace and unleash American drone dominance,” Carr said. “As the President’s national strategy outlines, the production, deployment, and export of American drones are core elements of U.S. national security, technological sovereignty, and global competitiveness.”

“At the FCC, we are doing our part to promote U.S. drone leadership by cutting red tape, modernizing obsolete regulations, and securing a domestic drone supply chain,” he added. “Today’s public notice is the next major step in that effort. We are seeking comment on a range of important actions, including modernizing experimental licensing, creating new drone innovation zones, and ensuring more spectrum for drone operators. I look forward to continue working alongside the all the relevant federal departments and agencies, in implementing President Trump’s strategy to secure American drone dominance.”

The Public Notice called “Unleashing American Drone Dominance” seeks input on “an array of reforms the Commission might take to unleash American drone dominance,” the agency reported.

As previously reported, it comes at a time when the U.S. has banned the sale new models of many popular drones made in China and other countries outside the U.S.

Late last year, following an Executive Branch national security determination, the FCC added foreign-produced unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and UAS critical components to its Covered List of items that can’t be sold in America.

Subsequently, following another national security determination the FCC removed some of these devices from the Covered List. Even so, most foreign-produced UAS and UAS critical components are still prohibited from receiving authorization for the U.S. market and the FCC is expanding its efforts to support the deployment of drone technology in the U.S.

The FCC said it has been working to speed up the application process for UAS and Counter-UAS experimental licenses. Since January 2025, the Commission has granted 227 UAS experimental approvals, and, for the first time ever, 8 Counter-UAS experimental approvals.

These include experimental licenses for use by the Department of War as part of the implementation of President Trump’s Unleashing American Drone Dominance executive order. Compared to the previous four years, from 2021-2024, approvals granted by the FCC for UAS conventional experimental licenses have increased by 68%.

In the new public notice issued April 1, the FCC’s WTB and OET is seeking input on a variety of issues. The agency described those issues as follows:

• Alleviating unnecessary regulatory burdens that frustrate drone deployment, including Commission rules or policies—such as siting or device certification—that may create friction for the growth of a competitive, secure, and innovative domestic drone ecosystem.
• Ensuring that American drone manufacturers and users have access to sufficient spectrum for drone testing and operations, including services to the public.
• Facilitating and encouraging American firms’ investment in drone capabilities, developing infrastructure, and offering innovative and advanced capabilities.
• Ensuring that U.S.-based manufacturers and trusted suppliers have the regulatory clarity and technical access needed to scale production and secure investment.
• Coordinating more effectively with other federal agencies to align spectrum policies with national security imperatives and reduce the risk posed by untrusted foreign-origin UAS operating in U.S. airspace.
• Streamlining the FCC’s experimental licensing rules to facilitate more agile testing of UAS communications systems—including beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) links, command and control (C2) systems, detect-and-avoid (DAA) technologies, and secure navigation tools—across a broader range of spectrum bands.
• Establishing additional dedicated drone innovation zones or testbeds, in partnership with federal, state, academic, or private entities, and whether streamlining authorizations to help spur early-stage experimentation and commercialization.

The Public Notice and other information on the topic can be found here.

WASHINGTON—Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation Chairman Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) have sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr raising what they call “serious concerns” about the way the agency approved $6.2 billion merger between Nexstar and Tegna.

Those concerns revolve around the fact that the deal was approved by the Media Bureau rather than a full Commission vote, a move that Carr has defended and Commissioner Anna Gomez has criticized.

The decision, they wrote, “raises serious concerns about the Commission’s use of delegated authority in matters involving significant legal, policy, and economic consequences. The transaction is unprecedented in scale, resulting in the largest local broadcast television group in U.S. history, with 259 full-power television stations across 44 states, reaching nearly 80 percent of U.S. television households, even after required divestitures. A transaction of this magnitude alone warranted consideration and a vote by the full Commission. Although you have indicated that a full Commission vote may still occur, the Commission has already approved the transaction on delegated authority, effectively determining the outcome. Under these circumstances, any subsequent vote risks being largely procedural rather than a genuine exercise of Commission responsibility.”

The letter lays out a number of areas where the transaction raised significant legal and economic issues, including the waiver of the existing station ownership caps, that the Senators indicated deserved review and a vote by the full Commission rather than approval by the Media Bureau.

“Congress has entrusted the Federal Communications Commission with substantial authority under the Communications Act, including the mandate to act in the “public interest,” the Senators wrote. “Within this authority, the FCC may delegate certain responsibilities to its bureaus, but such delegations are constrained by statute and regulation. Among other limits, a bureau may not act on matters that present new or novel legal, factual, or policy questions unresolved by existing precedent. This merger required the resolution of significant and unresolved legal questions. Most notably, the order granted an expansive waiver of the 39 percent national audience reach cap—a statutory limit set by Congress—despite ongoing debate about the Commission’s authority to modify or circumvent that cap. In addition, the order approved extensive waivers of local ownership rules, including authorization of three major full-power stations in a single market in numerous cases. These are not routine applications of settled policy; they are substantial departures from existing rules.”

“The size of the transaction and the scope of the waivers presented are precisely the type of novel and consequential issues that Commission precedent, as well as basic principles of administrative accountability to the American people, require to be decided by the full Commission,” the Senators complained. “Equally troubling is the procedural consequence of this choice. Because bureau-level decisions are not final orders, parties must first seek Commission review before accessing the courts. In a transaction of this scale, where integration proceeds quickly and unwinding becomes impractical, delay in judicial review can insulate the decision from meaningful challenge. That outcome is difficult to reconcile with the Commission’s obligation to ensure transparency and accountability in major actions.”

The letter also noted opposition by both FCC Chair Carr and Senator Cruz to the FCC making major decisions at the Bureau level rather than a full commission vote.

“You [Carr] have previously said that significant transactions should not be resolved at the staff level,” the letter noted. “In June 2023, you committed to `not block a large transaction without a Commission vote,’ emphasizing that such decisions `must reflect the will of the Commission.’ You have also criticized prior instances in which the Media Bureau acted on `new and novel decisions without authorization from the full Commission,' noting that the Bureau `does not have the authority to do’ so. The Nexstar–Tegna order presents the same kinds of questions. Yet here, the Commission proceeded in the opposite direction. This inconsistency raises an important question about the limiting principle of delegated authority. If a transaction of this scale, involving statutory caps and waivers across dozens of markets, can be resolved at the bureau level, it is unclear what types of decisions still require Commission-level review.”

In response to the approval the Senators also asked Carr to submit written answers to a number of questions about the approval process and the FCC’s use of “delegated authority” in the future.

WASHINGTON—Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr has warned the NFL that shifting media rights to costly streaming services could prompt the agency to take regulatory action and potentially cost the league its anti-trust exemption that allows it to negotiate media rights.

Carr made the comments in a March 29 interview on Fox News. Fox introduced the segment with a poll showing that 72% of fans would prefer to watch major sporting events on broadcast TV, versus only 27% on streaming.

The cable news net also presented a study showing that the shift of rights to streaming services and pay TV outlets was making it exorbitantly expensive for fans to watch NFL games. The study concluded consumers would have to shell out nearly $2,500 a year to subscribe to multiple apps just to watch games.

The experience of watching sports “has become frustrating over the last several years,” Carr said in response to the data. “It's more complex, it's more costly. You effectively have to have a computer science degree to decipher this. As you noted, people have to sign up for Netflix and Hulu and YouTube and Google. It's very, very difficult these days, but historically, broadcast TV and sports leagues have had a great and mutually beneficial relationship.

“We’re at a point now where I think some of these leagues are at a tipping point where they're going to push this issue so far and start to lose their antitrust exemption,” he added. “We’re all for sports leagues getting fair market value for their product, but right now, they're benefiting from a very unique antitrust exemption to pool their bargaining together, but...we're at a tipping point where these leagues can push it so far putting games behind paywalls that they undermine their ability to claim that antitrust exemption.”

In response to a question about what could be done to address the problem, Carr noted that the FCC has an ongoing inquiry into broadcast sports rights that has attracted a lot of attention with thousands of comments, which is “a big number for the FCC. We're reviewing that right now. The vast majority so far, based on an initial assessment, support keeping a significant portion of these sports games on free over the air broadcast TV.”

He also said that “there could be actions at other portions of the government and Congress as well, if these sports leagues continue to push this issue.”

WASHINGTON—During his monthly press conference, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr reiterated his controversial plans to enforce public interest rules on broadcasters who show "news bias" while describing the agency’s decision to approve the Nexstar/Tegna deal as being part of a larger policy to create a “healthy, thriving local broadcast TV market.“

Carr also provided new details about an ongoing enforcement action against Disney relating to a violation of “equal time” rules.

Since becoming FCC chair in 2025, Carr has said the agency was investigating various Disney properties for a variety of alleged offences. Those include their DEI practices, "news bias" in ABC’s handling of a 2026 Presidential debate and potential equal time violations.

Earlier this year, the FCC Media Bureau under Carr issued guidance telling broadcast stations airing certain late night and daytime talk shows that they are required to give equal time to rival candidates if those shows air interviews with political candidates. This prompted a major controversy when Stephen Colbert said CBS refused to allow him to air an interview with Texas State Representative James Talarico, a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate in Texas on his late night show.

Subsequently the FCC said in early February it had opened an investigation into `The View’ on ABC, which aired an separate interview with Talarico.

During the March 26 press conference, Carr said that the equal time rules require that stations to file “an equal time notice” in their political file. This triggers a window during which other candidates can “seek out and obtain their comparable time and placement."

Carr added that “the Disney owned TV station…didn't make any filing indicating that there had been a legally qualified candidate for office” in their non-news programming. In contrast, “every single TV station other than the one owned by Disney that ran that program did, in fact, file a notice regarding the appearance by James Talarico," Carr added.

In response to what enforcement action the FCC has taken in the matter, Carr said “it's ongoing right now. So we have lots of enforcement tools that are available to the FCC. We have our version of subpoenas, which are letters of inquiry. At this point, I'll just say that. You know, we've taken some enforcement measures with respect to Disney and `The View’. So we're still in the midst of this enforcement proceeding. We've taken certain steps. We're going to be taking others here soon and [not] announced publicly on that, but it is an enforcement matter at this point.”

In terms of the FCC's approval of the Nexstar Tegna merger, Carr put the agency’s decision in the context of the ongoing problems of local journalism. If “you look at this massive, secular decline in reporters, and you look at the future of the broadcast TV industry, I think it's imperative as a national policy matter that we should want a healthy, thriving local broadcast TV market,” he said

In response to a question about whether the FCC was planning to overturn the ownership caps on broadcast stations, Carr said “I think we should give broadcasters, local TV stations in particular, a fighting chance in this new frothy media environment” but stressed that the agency hadn’t made a final decision.

He also hinted that approving waivers to the ownership cap in mergers on a case by case basis, as it did in the Nexstar/Tegna deal, might be an acceptable policy even if the ownership rules weren’t changed.

“This is a rule that the FCC has said over and over again, is a rule, and any rule can be waived when the waiver standard is met," he said. "And that's a case by case review in terms of application of the waiver standard.”

Strictly enforcing the rules without considering wavers “stops all transactions from being reviewed by the FCC, good transactions and bad transactions alike. So I think…being able to take a case by case look at transactions makes sense. Transactions that are in the public interest, we can let through and transactions that aren't, we can stop. Moving into that sort of a more refined approach is better.”

In a separate press conference, FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, a Democrat, disputed Carr’s defense of the Nexstar/Tegna approval process with some of her strongest words to date.

“Last week's rushed closed door approval of the unlawful Nexstar/Tegna merger is just the latest example of what I call the billionaire bypass,” Gomez complained. If “you are a billionaire with business before a government agency and a perceived friend of the White House, your transaction will get fast track approval. We saw it with the Paramount Skydance transaction, where the FCC immediately approved the deal, after Skydance agreed to make CBS more friendly to this administration, and after CBS paid to settle [a Trump lawsuit]...We are seeing it play out again with the proposed Warner Brothers discovery and Paramount merger, and we saw it last week with a $6.2 billion deal that sailed through multiple levels of regulatory scrutiny in a single day.”

“[M]eanwhile smaller transactions from less connected companies filed months earlier are still waiting,” she said. “This is not a coincidence. It is a pattern, and it tells you exactly who this FCC is working for, and it is certainly not the vast majority of American consumers.”

Gomez also described the approval as “flatly illegal. Congress said the national broadcast ownership cap at 39% of American homes. It reaffirmed that limit three times over 20 years, most recent, recently in 2004 when it explicitly stripped the FCC of any authority to waive or modify it. The law is not ambiguous. The FCC cannot rewrite it. It cannot ignore it. Yet, that is exactly what the media Bureau did last week, under bureaucratic cover, with no open process and no public accountability.”

WASHINGTON—Following President Trump’s Executive Order establishing an exclusive broadcast window for the annual Army-Navy football game, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr has come out in favor of the idea, which is designed to ensure that no other college football games are aired at the same time of the matchup.

During a presentation of the Commander in Chief’s Trophy to the United States Naval Academy football team, President Trump signed a new Executive Order to protect the Army-Navy Game, known as “America’s Game” by giving it an exclusive time slot.

Specifically, the Executive Order calls on the Chairman of the FCC and the Secretary of Commerce to coordinate with relevant stakeholders to ensure that no college football games are broadcast that conflict with the airing of the game.

FCC Chair Carr, who attended the presentation and the signing of the order, quickly issued a statement backing the Order.

“I was honored to join President Trump at the White House today as he awarded the coveted Commander in Chief’s Trophy to the Navy Football team,” Carr said. “The annual showdown between Army and Navy is always a classic and showcases the strength and bravery of this national service event. America’s Game stands as a symbol of excellences and our great national spirit. It is important that we continue to reserve a window of time on the second Saturday in December exclusively for this important event. I look forward to working with Secretary Lutnick [at the U.S. Commerce Department] on the successful implementation of this Executive Order.”

The Order comes at a time when the recent and potentially ongoing expansion of the College Football Playoffs (CFP) and other postseason college football games has raised worries that the CFP might encroach upon the second Saturday in December and create scheduling conflicts with the game.

“Such scheduling conflicts weaken the national focus on our Military Service Academies and detract from a morale-building event of vital interest to the Department of War,” the March 20 Executive Order stated. “Accordingly, it is the policy of the United States that no college football game, specifically college football’s CFP or other postseason games, be broadcast in a manner that directly conflicts with the Army‑Navy Game. Such scheduling conflicts weaken the national focus on our Military Service Academies and detract from a morale-building event of vital interest to the Department of War.”

To achieve that aim, the “Preserving America’s Game” Executive Order directs that the Secretary of Commerce and the Chairman of the FCC coordinate with the CFP Committee, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, related organizations, other appropriate government agencies, and the playoffs’ broadcast and media rights partners with the goal of establishing an exclusive window for the Army-Navy Game, during which no other college football game is broadcast.

Traditionally, the Army-Navy game has sat in a protected time slot. In 2025, FBS bowl games, the Celebration Bowl and LA Bowl, were intentionally scheduled for noon and 8:00 PM to avoid a direct broadcast conflict with the rivalry.

It is not clear whether any of the parties involved in scheduling the games have considered changing that tradition. Nor is it clear if the U.S. president has the authority to establish an exclusive broadcast window for the Army/Navy game or any other sporting event.

If the courts were to rule that President Trump had the constitutional authority to schedule TV programming or the timing of other events–subjects that are not directly mentioned in the constitution establishing the authority of the executive branch–it would mark an unprecedented expansion of government power over the content appearing on television and scheduling of major events. It would also give the government greatly expanded power to directly intervene in private contracts between media outlets, sports leagues, individuals and companies.

Nor is it clear how such a window could be enforced.

The EO specifies that the Chair of the FCC shall consider reviewing the public interest obligations of broadcast licensees to determine whether those obligations would require that the Army-Navy Game remain a national service event.

Such a determination would dramatically expand the FCC’s authority over the scheduling of broadcasts and sporting events.

The full Executive Order is available here.

WASHINGTON—Recent proposals by President Donald Trump and FCC chair Brendan Carr to revoke the licenses of TV stations that broadcast “fake news” critical of the administration’s handling of the Iran war have drawn fire from four former Republican FCC officials.

In addition to labelling Carr’s threats to yank broadcast licenses "unconstitutional”, they argued in a public statement that Carr is “unfit for office” and Congress should both investigate his actions and “consider more serious remedies. It is past time to stand up to this intimidation. The future of free speech and the free press in this country are at risk.”

The joint statement, released by the nonprofit group Protect Democracy, was attributed to former FCC Chairs Mark Fowler and Alfred Sikes, former FCC Commissioner Rachelle Chong, and former FCC Chief of Staff Jerald Fritz.

While Democrats have been particularly vocal in their opposition to Carr’s assertion that the FCC has the right to investigate stations and take away licenses based on “biased” coverage, the remarks by the Republican former FCC officials highlights how unusual it has been during the last half century for the regulatory agency to get involved in partisan political battles over news coverage.

As previously reported here, here and here, a number of former FCC officials have blasted the agency's attempt to regulate TV news content in public statements and in letters and petitions filed with the regulator.

“While this weekend’s threats by Chair Carr weren’t his first, they represent a notable escalation of attacks against news media, which are especially concerning in an election year,” the statement noted. “In a democracy, the government does not get to decide what is news and how to cover it. Chairman Carr knows better. In 2019, he rejected the idea that the FCC could police speech in the name of the “public interest.” The Constitution as well as the Communications Act forbid it. We filed a formal petition last fall with the FCC explaining why the First Amendment forbids the use of the news distortion policy—or any FCC power for that matter—to correct alleged bias in the news. Chairman Carr has failed to take any action on that petition. Instead he has continued his unconstitutional pattern of threatening to strip broadcast licenses from stations whose news outlets report news in a way he or the President doesn't like.”

“Because Chairman Carr has shown he is uninterested in following the Constitution, Congress should act,” the statement concluded. “Congress should investigate the FCC’s interactions with media companies and legislate to remove or narrow the regulatory powers Carr is abusing—including the oft-cited news distortion policy. The recent oversight hearings held by the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee were good starts. But there is much more to be investigated, including the details of how the Chairman’s abusive regulatory coercion has affected media companies seeking to merge. Or, as the Chairman has shown himself to be constitutionally unfit to hold the office, Congress could consider more serious remedies. It is past time to stand up to this intimidation. The future of free speech and the free press in this country are at risk.”

WASHINGTON—In a strongly worded response to threats by President Trump and Federal Communication Commission Chair Brendan Carr to yank broadcast licenses from stations who have aired "fake news" critical of the administration as part of their coverage of the war with Iran, FCC Commissioner Anna M. Gomez issued the statement arguing that the agency does not have the authority to regulate news coverage and that broadcasters need to resist the “chilling effect” those threats might have on news coverage.

“Once again, this FCC pretends it has the power to control news coverage,” Gomez said. “In reality, the FCC has vanishingly little power over national news networks. It licenses local broadcast stations, not networks, and no licenses are up for renewal until 2028. Early renewal attempts are exceedingly rare, and the process is so demanding that any effort would almost certainly fail, especially given the well-documented First Amendment violations underlying these moves. These threats are grounded in neither reality nor law and would not survive judicial scrutiny, just as other recent attempts by this Administration to push beyond constitutional limits have repeatedly failed in court.”

That does not mean, however, that threats to yank licenses aren’t very worrisome, Gomez argued, repeating previously stated concerns that the threats can have a chilling impact on coverage and encourage media outlets to avoid regulatory problems by self-censoring critical coverage of the administration.

“The concern over the chilling effect of these actions, however, is very real,” the Commissioner said. “Over the past year, this FCC has attacked the media as part of a years-long campaign by this Administration and its allies to discredit factual, independent coverage while blaming the press for growing public distrust. Meanwhile, it is the FCC’s own credibility and public trust that are rapidly eroding.

“Out of the many politically motivated FCC investigations targeting perceived government critics, not a single one has resulted in an enforcement action,” she said. “This follows a well-established pattern of threatened investigations, broadcast license revocations, and regulatory harassment aimed at pressuring broadcasters and their corporate parents to comply or capitulate in advance. We cannot give this FCC more power than it has. Broadcasters, journalists, and the public should recognize these empty threats for what they are and fight to defend the First Amendment against any attempt to control or intimidate the press.”

While the FCC has not attempted to investigate “news bias” in broadcast news in recent decades, FCC Chair Carr has repeatedly argued that it does in fact have the authority to do so. Under his leadership the agency is currently carrying out several investigations for “news bias” against ABC, CBS and NBC affiliates. It has also been investigating TV late night shows for alleged "news bias" and violations of equal time rules for political candidates.

Carr has said that the same rules against bias apply to both TV and radio but has not opened investigations into radio stations carrying conservative political shows and has generally sidestepped questions about radio.

Worries that rules relating to either “news bias” or “equal time” for political candidates could be applied to AM radio stations that regularly air conservative talk and political shows, has prompted pushback from conservative senators like Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Sean Hannity, who has a popular show on the Fox News cable channel, which is not licensed by the FCC, and a syndicated talk show that airs on many broadcast radio stations licensed by the agency.

“Talk radio is successful because people are smart and understand we are the antidote to corrupt and abusively biased left wing legacy media,” Hannity said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times. “We need less government regulation and more freedom. Let the American people decide where to get their information from without any government interference.”

WASHINGTON—Following new criticism from President Trump on the news media's coverage of the Iran War, FCC Chair Brendan Carr has reposted Trump’s attack on reporting by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and issued a stern warning to broadcasters that running “fake news” could jeopardize their licenses.

“Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions - also known as the fake news - have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up,” Carr wrote on March 14 on X. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.”

“And frankly, changing course is in their own business interests since trust in legacy media has now fallen to an all time low of just 9% and are ratings disasters,” he added. “The American people have subsidized broadcasters to the tune of billions of dollars by providing free access to the nation’s airwaves…The public has lost faith and confidence in the media. And we can’t allow that to happen.”

In response to Carr's post, Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote "Constitutional law 101: it’s illegal for the government to censor free speech it just doesn’t like about Trump’s Iran war. This threat is straight out of the authoritarian playbook. x.com/brendancarrfcc."

Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), member of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, also sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr, urging him to resign over his latest social media post threatening to revoke broadcasters’ licenses.

Senator Markey highlighted the post as an extraordinary abuse of FCC authority and a clear violation of the First Amendment, as well as the Trump administration’s latest authoritarian attempt to weaponize the FCC’s statutory authority to censor the media.

In the letter, Senator Markey wrote, “Your post on Saturday demonstrated your continued effort to turn the FCC into Trump’s personal speech police. … Your Saturday post is not an aberration. It is the latest and most dangerous step in a sustained campaign to use the FCC’s licensing authority as a weapon against broadcasters and journalists whose coverage displeases the Trump administration. … The FCC’s credibility depends on its willingness to exercise its authority on the merits, not at the direction of the President, and not as an instrument of retribution against journalism. You have once again shown that you are unwilling to maintain that independence and uphold your sworn oath to defend the U.S. Constitution, and I once again call on you to resign.”

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez added her voice to the critics.

“The FCC can issue threats all day long, but it is powerless to carry them out. Such threats violate the First Amendment and will go nowhere," she said in a statement on Sunday. "Broadcasters should continue covering the news, fiercely and independently, without fear of government pressure.”

On Sunday night, the president ramped up his criticism of the media, accusing the "Radical Leftwing Press" of having "no credibility," and charging it with "treason" in a post on his Truth Social account.

Trump also endorsed Carr's threat to revoke broadcast licenses over news coverage of the war in Iran, calling media organizations “Corrupt and Highly Unpatriotic” in a Truth Social post.

“They get Billions of Dollars of FREE American Airwaves, and use it to perpetuate LIES, both in News and almost all of their Shows, including the Late Night Morons, who get gigantic Salaries for horrible Ratings,” Trump wrote.

“As I used to say in The Apprentice, ‘FIRED,’” he added.

Although the FCC regulates broadcast licenses, it has far less ability to control cable news. That frustration was voiced by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth during a briefing last week when he lambasted CNN's coverage of the war, implying that Paramount—CNN's new owner—will provide more favorable coverage to the Trump administration.

“The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better," he said.

TV Tech will add more comments as they come in.

WASHINGTON—Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn), ranking member of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), has written FCC Enforcement Bureau Chiefs Patrick Webre and Erin Boone asking for information about its announcement that it would enforce “equal time” rules on late-night TV and talk shows.

As previously reported, the Federal Communications Commission in January issued new guidance on broadcast “equal time” rules which said stations airing “partisan” talk shows and late night programs must comply. This erupted into a major controversy when Stephen Colbert, host of CBS’s "The Late Show," said the network refused to allow him to air an interview with a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate in Texas.

The interview with Texas State Rep. James Talarico has since passed 8.8 million views on YouTube.

“FCC Chair Carr’s attempt to ground his partisan censorship scheme under legal pretense willfully misinterprets and disregards decades of settled precedent and ignores Americans’ fundamental freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment,” Blumenthal wrote in a letter to Webre and Boone. “Congress provided statutory exemptions to the equal time rule in 1959 for bona fide news interviews and newscasts, fearing that the onerous application of the rule ‘would tend to dry up meaningful radio and television coverage of political campaigns’ and impose a ‘virtual blackout in the presentation of candidates on the news-type programs.’”

Blumenthal also wrote to Paramount Global Chairman and CEO David Ellison regarding the decision not to air the interview.

“While CBS claimed Mr. Colbert could host all other candidates, in practice that would require providing airtime for up to 14 other candidates, which would create exactly the ‘virtual blackout’ that Congress sought to prevent by enacting an exception to the equal time rule in 1959,” Blumenthal wrote in a letter to Ellison.

Blumenthal continued: “Additionally, the Subcommittee is engaged in an inquiry into political favoritism and the apparent corruption of antitrust review under the Trump Administration, including the FCC’s review of Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount and Paramount’s attempts to acquire Warner Bros. Paramount’s decision to comply, while it is attempting to enlist the Department of Justice and White House to intervene in the Warner Bros.’ transaction, calls into question its motivations for silencing Mr. Colbert.”

As ranking member of PSI, Blumenthal said he is conducting a preliminary inquiry into the FCC’s abuse of power, including dubious investigations and misrepresentations of the law to silence free speech. In September, Blumenthal hosted a public forum with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on what they called the Trump Administration’s efforts to use the FCC and government authority to chill First Amendment-protected speech and independent, fact-based news reporting.

The full text of Blumenthal’s letter to Webre and Boone is available here. The full text of Blumenthal’s letter to Ellison is available here.

WASHINGTON—FCC Chairman Brendan Carr established the Pledge America Campaign that urges U.S. broadcasters to mark 250 years of American independence by airing “patriotic, pro-America programming” and news content, PSAs and by starting each broadcast day with the “Star Spangled Banner” or Pledge of Allegiance.

The initiative is intended to build on President Donald J. Trump creation of the Salute to America 250 Task Force (“Task Force 250”) that is planning a full year of festivities to launch on Memorial Day, 2025 and continue through July 4, 2026.

As part of that effort the White House said it “is engaging and encouraging the entire federal government, state and local governments, the private sector, non-profit and educational institutions, and every citizen across this country to join in this historic celebration. Task Force 250 invites citizens to have a renewed love of American history, experience the beauty of our country, and ignite a spirit of adventure and innovation that will raise our nation to new heights over the next 250 years.”

In response, Carr said he was establishing the Pledge America Campaign in support of this historic initiative.

“The White House is leading our national celebration of this historic event with the Salute to America 250 Task Force, which calls on the federal government, among others, to mark this momentous occasion,” Carr noted. “As part of this effort, I am calling on broadcasters to pledge to provide programming that promotes civic education, national pride, and our shared history. This type of programming is more relevant than ever, as surveys show that civics education is in rapid decline. And classic programming such as Schoolhouse Rock! is now only found in online archives. Broadcasters are uniquely positioned to help address these concerning developments by providing programming that celebrates the remarkable story of American Independence while also tailoring it to the specific needs of their local communities, in furtherance of their public interest obligations.”

“That is why I am inviting broadcasters to pledge to air programming in their local markets in support of this historic national, non-partisan celebration,” he concluded.

Carr described examples of this program as follows:

• "Running PSAs, short segments, or full specials specifically promoting civic education, inspiring local stories, and American history.
• Including segments during regular news programming that highlight local sites that are significant to American and regional history, such as National Park Service sites.
• Starting each broadcast day with the “Star Spangled Banner” or Pledge of Allegiance.
• Airing music by America’s greatest composers, such as John Philip Sousa, Aaron Copland, Duke Ellington, or George Gershwin.
• Providing daily “Today in American History” announcements highlighting significant events that took place on that day in history.
• Partnering with community organizations and other groups that are already working hard to bring America’s stories of unity, perseverance, and triumph to light."

In response to the announcement, FCC Commissioner Ann Gomez posted on X that “Nothing is more American than defending our constitutional rights against those who would erode our civil liberties. If broadcasters choose to participate in this FCC campaign, they can do so by defending their First Amendment rights and refusing government interference.”

WASHINGTON—Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr has announced that Managing Director Mark Stephens will be retiring after decades of outstanding service and that Daniel Daly would be replacing him as Managing Director.

Daly has been Deputy Managing Director prior to this appointment and has two decades of leadership experience in the Office of Managing Director.

The FCC’s Managing Director provides oversight of the agency’s budget and financial programs, human resources, contracts, purchasing, communications, computer services, physical space, security, and distribution of official FCC documents.

“With 35 years of service at the FCC, to say Mark Stephens will be missed at the FCC is a huge understatement,” Carr said. “For the last decade, he has had one job comprised of a thousand jobs: keep the FCC running and in strong fiscal shape. In short: he has succeeded. In fact, he has excelled through the agency’s busy times and shutdowns alike. In the last year, he has been an invaluable counsel to my office, and I want to thank him for his tremendous work and outstanding leadership. I wish him all the best in his retirement.”

After serving Stephens served honorably in the U.S. Navy from 1975 to 1979, he was first hired by the FCC as an auditor in the Common Carrier Bureau in 1991. In 2007, he was named Chief Financial Officer and, in 2016, he became Managing Director.

During his nearly four decades of federal service, he received the 2024 FCBA Excellence in Government Service Award; FCC Meritorious Service Medal (Silver Award) in 2006 for sustained exceptional accomplishments related to the mission and objectives of the Commission; and the FCC Distinguished Service Medal (Gold Award) in 2012 for sustained extraordinary accomplishments related to the mission and objectives of the Commission.

Stephens' replacement Dan Daly has been in the senior leadership of the Office of Managing Director for two decades having served as Senior Counsel for Financial Operations starting in 2006, Chief of Staff starting in 2009, and, most recently, Deputy Managing Director since 2022.

Daly also served as Acting Chief of Staff of the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau in 2008 and as Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform from 2002 to 2006. Dan received the FCC Distinguished Service Medal (Gold Award) in 2024 for sustained extraordinary accomplishments related to the mission and objectives of the Commission. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the College of William and Mary and his law degree from George Mason University School of Law.

WASHINGTON—The proposed deal for Nexstar to acquire Tegna got a major boost on social media in recent days when President Trump weighed in with his support for the deal.

“We need more competition against THE ENEMY, the Fake News National TV Networks,” Trump posted on his Truth Social site. “Letting Good Deals get done like Nexstar - Tegna will help knock out the Fake News because there will be more competition, and at a higher and more sophisticated level. Those that are opposed don’t fully understand how good the concept of this Deal is for them, but they will in the future. GET THAT DEAL DONE! PRESIDENT DJT”

In response, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr, who has repeatedly noted that he would like to strengthen local broadcasters, offered perhaps his clearest intention to date of his willingness to get rid of the 39% ownership cap.

Carr postedon X that “President Trump is exactly right. The national networks like Comcast & Disney have amassed too much power. For years, they’ve been pushing this Hollywood & New York programming all over the country with no real checks. Let’s get it done and bring real competition to them.”

Trump's willingness to back the deal and by implication support changes in station ownership rules marks a reversal from his previous position attacking efforts to lift the 39% ownership cap as something that would help "radical left networks."

In a social media post on Nov. 23, 2025 Trump linked to a Newsmax article that said lifting FCC station ownership caps would be a “disaster for conservatives.” In the earlier post, Trump also complained that if proposals to lift the cap “would allow the Radical Left Networks to ‘enlarge,’ I would not be happy…If anything make them SMALLER!”

Consumer Technology Association President and CEO Gary Shapiro and Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr’s wide-ranging conversation Jan. 8 at CES in Las Vegas gave broadcasters a lot to think about when it comes to their future. It also prompted a couple of my own thoughts.

(If you missed it, C-SPAN carried the conversation, which is available here.)

The future of local TV, general support for ATSC 3.0 at the commission, possible readjustment of the network-affiliate relationship and spectrum use and policy were among the highlights. Here, let’s focus on another: the public-interest obligation of broadcasters.

Setting the stage for discussing the public-interest obligation, Carr reminded the audience of the privilege of having a broadcast license and what that means to broadcasters when it comes to retransmission consent and ultimately must-carry dollars.

“[Broadcasting is] a very, very unique distribution medium…because the government is picking a winner and loser,” he said. “You get a license; you get this microphone; you get to speak; you don’t necessarily get to conduct yourself the same way you would if you run a podcast or a soapbox or a cable channel.”

For broadcasters who don’t like that obligation, Carr offered a couple of solutions: turn in your license and transition to a cable channel, start a podcast, become a YouTube channel or bid on your spectrum in an auction, “maybe let[ting] everyone have a fair and free shot at purchasing that spectrum without the public-interest obligation,” he said.

However, at the risk of revealing my naiveté, how many local TV broadcasters truly are clamoring to shed their public-interest obligation? On the whole, when have local TV stations not lived up to this obligation? Certainly not during tornadoes, hurricanes, incoming missile attacks (remember the Hawaii false alarm?), earthquakes and other emergencies.

On the contrary, unprompted by regulators. the TV industry has attempted to up its game in these situations with Advanced Emergency Alerting & Information (AEI&A), a built-in feature of the ATSC 3.0 standard. However, AEI&A—just like other 3.0 enhancements—can’t fully come to fruition until the industry can move forward on sunsetting 1.0.

Nor have they failed to serve the interests of the public each morning, noon and night when it comes to local news. Carr himself acknowledged in his comments that, given the decline of daily newspapers, local newscasts offer “the last of the real ‘gumshoe reporting.’”

My second observation is the 1934 Communications Act didn’t simply mandate
a public interest obligation. There’s also the “convenience and necessity” portion of the phrase.

It seems to me to be counter to the spirit of TV broadcasters’ obligation to serve the “public interest, convenience and necessity” if the TV sets that the public watches are unable to provide the greatest convenience (think personalization and interactivity) and necessity (think AEI&A evacuation maps in flooding) that local TV broadcasters can deliver.

WASHINGTON—Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr has announced a tentative agenda for the February Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Wednesday, February 18, 2026.

Documents relating to the items on the agenda are available here.

The FCC described the items on the tentative agenda as follows:

• Strengthening the Integrity of the Lifeline Program. The Commission will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking comment on reforms to the Lifeline program to ensure that federal dollars go to eligible Americans, enhance program integrity, ensure that service providers comply with the Commission’s rules and regulations, and streamline Lifeline rules. (WC Docket Nos. 11-42, 17-287, 09-197, 21-450, 20-445)
• Maximizing the Potential of the 900 MHz Band. The Commission will consider a Report and Order that would enable broadband deployment on all ten megahertz of the 900 MHz band (896–901/935–940 MHz band), facilitating additional spectrum access by utilities, critical infrastructure, and other enterprises for private wireless broadband deployments that drive innovation and stimulate the American economy. (WT Docket No. 24-99)
• Proposing Application Limit in Upcoming NCE Reserved Band FM Translator Filing Window. The Commission will consider a Public Notice to propose and seek comment on eligibility restrictions and a general limit of ten applications filed by any applicant entity in the upcoming 2026 filing window for new noncommercial educational reserved band FM translator stations. (MB Docket No. 26-20)
• Reforming Intercarrier Compensation. The Commission will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would seek comment on proposed reforms to intercarrier compensation, interexchange services and CAF ICC support aimed at accelerating network deployment and modernization. (WC Docket Nos. 25-311, 25-208)

The Open Meeting is scheduled to commence at 10:30 a.m. ET in the Commission Meeting Room of the Federal Communications Commission, 45 L Street, N.E., Washington, D.C.

Open Meetings are streamed live at www.fcc.gov/live.

WASHINGTON—In the wake of a widespread crackdown on DEI initiatives by the Trump administration and Federal Communications Commission, Free Press has issued a new report detailing the impact those efforts have had on the civil rights commitments of the nation’s largest media companies.

The report, Complicit: Corporate Media’s Capitulation to Trump’s Attacks on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, aims to shed new light on the ongoing capitulation of major media and tech companies to the dictates and provides a disturbing reversal of prior civil-rights commitments.

Complicit finds that 26 of the top 35 media companies caved to the administration by rolling back various DEI policies and practices just days or weeks after Trump issued anti-DEI executive orders on Jan. 20 and 21, 2025. Some of these companies got ahead of the executive orders: Amazon, Disney, Fox Corporation, Google, Meta and X had already backed away from prior diversity, equity and inclusion measures in the weeks following Trump’s November 2024 election.

As previously reported by TV Tech in our coverage of the FCC, NBCUniversal, CBS, AT&T, Verizon and several pending mergers, many of the media companies and telcos who have rolled back their DEI policies agreed to the changes as part of an effort to get FCC approval of pending mergers.

Paramount Skydance, for example, settled a libel suit with Trump and announced they would end DEI efforts shortly before the FCC finally approved the Paramount Skydance acquisition.

Report author and Free Press Campaign Manager Ruth Livier wrote that “Trump’s anti-diversity, equity and inclusion executive orders form the foundation of his regime’s efforts to dismantle our democracy. Outside of Trump and his enablers, no one is safe from attack. Failing to serve as an essential check against tyranny, corporate players are increasingly serving as megaphones for the MAGA movement, putting vulnerable communities at greater risk of attack — and betraying our democratic values.”

The full report is available here.

Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr appeared before a House oversight hearing on Wednesday and responded to a wide range of partisan questioning over his actions since he became leader of the government agency.

All three FCC commissioners appeared before the committee, including Olivia Trusty and Anna Gomez. The spotlight was mostly on Carr and his deregulatory policies since taking over as chairman in early 2025.

However, Gomez, the lone Democratic commissioner, also had a prominent role in answering questions from House Energy and Commerce committee members.

[This article originally appeared in our sister publication, Radio World.]

Defining Public Interest

The committee’s Democrats asked pointed questions about Carr’s definition of “public interest” and the role it plays in FCC policymaking. Carr was strident in defending the use of the public interest standard when managing broadcast licenses.

“What the Supreme Court has said on this issue is that, quote, ‘No one has a First Amendment right to a license,’” Carr said. “So the FCC enforcing the public interest standard on broadcasters, according to the Supreme Court, doesn’t violate the First Amendment and doesn’t constitute censorship.”

When fielding a question about the standard from ranking member Rep. Doris Matsui, the top Democrat on the telecom subcommittee, Carr said: “The FCC has an obligation to enforce the public interest, and that’s very unique as to broadcasters. Again, if you step back, broadcasters are unique among all other distributors of news and information because they have a license.”

Carr continued: “Among all other distributors of information or even data, they have a license given them by the federal government and that necessarily means the government has excluded other voices that might have wanted to use those airwaves; and so they have an obligation to stand not just in their own shoes, but in the shoes of their entire community of license. And that means they have to operate differently than a cable channel or a podcast or social media.”

Gomez suggested Congress should impose “guardrails” for the FCC to follow in defining the public interest standard.

Meanwhile, Carr faced harsh criticism from Democrats but effusive praise from Republicans for his handling of FCC matters early in his tenure as chairman.

Democrats on the committee zeroed in on Carr’s recent claim that the FCC is not an independent agency. Critics on the committee questioned the legitimacy of Carr’s claim.

When asked directly if he made the statement, Carr replied: “I said the FCC is not, formally speaking, an independent agency.”

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) said Carr has engaged in “quid pro quo” in favor of the president, and is abusing his power to violate Americans’ rights.

“Our duty to conduct oversight of the FCC has never been more critical than it is today, because in Trump’s ongoing crusade to chill free speech, punish news networks and vilify American journalism, there has been no greater ally than Chairman Brendan Carr,” Pallone said in opening remarks.

Gomez answered a question from Pallone about the FCC’s independence.

“Congress set up the FCC as an independent agency because it feared that the agency should not be subject to the whims of one person or one political party. That is why we have an independent multi-member expert body that regulates our communications medium,” Gomez testified.

“So when we declare that we are not independent, what we are doing is not recognizing what Congress wanted when it created this independent agency, but we are also putting way too much power into one person and then doing their political whims.”

Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) was direct in her criticism of Carr over what she called “the weaponization” of the FCC.

“Less than one year into his tenure, the FCC under Chairman Carr has given this committee many worthy avenues of exploration and oversight, most of which appear to stem from his new role as an obsequious partisan fulfilling President Trump’s desire to exact revenge on his perceived enemies and line the pockets of the oligarch class,” she stated.

However, instead of questioning Carr about his tactics, Clarke turned to Gomez and asked her about why the independence of the FCC is essential to its credibility.

Gomez said it’s important to have an independent agency because it must be seen as an expert body that makes decisions based on that expertise and not based on the policies of one administration.

Ownership Caps
There were calls to modernize outdated ownership restrictions and lift the national TV ownership cap from committee chairs Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) and Richard Hudson (R-NC).

Guthrie asked Carr about the importance of media modernization and how removing outdated regulations allows broadcasters to better compete with big tech.

Carr’s reply dealt mostly with television and the loss of balance between local TV stations and television networks.

“One of the main concerns I have with respect to media policy is you have on the one hand all of these individual licensed local TV stations, and on the other hand you have these national programmers, including Disney, Comcast, a handful of others,“ he said. ”And over the years historically we had a balance between the national programmers and the licensed local TV stations.

“But recently what we’ve seen is those national programmers have just consolidated and amassed a massive amount of power. And we’re losing that balance between the national programmers and the actual local TV stations.”

Carr had emphasized in his opening statement that the FCC is working to “empower local broadcasters to serve the public interest and meet the needs of their communities.”

The commission is considering changes to broadcast ownership rules as part of its quadrennial review process.

Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Calif) described Carr as “a tool of President Trump’s Project 2025 agenda,” and said Carr’s ultimate plan is to “suppress freedom of speech and those who criticize Trump and to forcefully favor Trump’s billionaire friends and supporters in order to control the content.”

Ruiz asked Gomez about the wisdom of further broadcast consolidation.

“What happens when we have too much consolidation by these national corporations that own these local broadcasters is we lose the diversity of voices and we lose that local news content. Couple that with the defunding of public media and we are also losing even more voices in our local communities,” Gomez said.

Spectrum Authority

Republicans on Wednesday asked mostly about telecom issues, including the expansion of high-speed internet and the FCC’s renewed spectrum authority.

Texas Rep. August Pfluger was among those asking Carr about the FCC’s timeline to make additional spectrum available for 5G and other wireless services. The FCC’s authority to hold spectrum auctions had lapsed under the Biden administration.

“We’re finalizing rules for the upper C-band, which will clear at least 100 megahertz,” Carr said. “We’ve sought comment on clearing up to 180 Megahertz. There’s also active work underway on the 7 gigahertz band, on the 2.7 Gigahertz band, and even unlicensed.

“Again, this month alone we’re voting to supercharge Wi-Fi by allowing higher power devices. In addition, we are clearing the barriers in the secondary markets so spectrum that wasn’t fully loaded, that could have been sitting fallow, is moving into the hands of carriers that are loading it and lighting it up and increasing speed.”

Congress has authorized the FCC to auction off 800 MHz of spectrum for commercial broadband by 2034.

[This article originally appeared in our sister publication Radio World. You can access their full coverage of business, legal and regulatory issues here.]

WASHINGTON—Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr has announced a tentative agenda for its Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 29.

During the meeting, commissioners will vote on expanding unlicensed operations in the 6 GHz band, foreign ownership and other items.

Materials related to the items can be found here.

The FCC described the items that will be considered as follows:

• Expanding Unlicensed Operations in the 6 GHz Band—The Commission will consider a Fourth Report and Order that would permit a new class of unlicensed 6-GHz devices—geofenced variable power (GVP) unlicensed devices—that operate outdoors at higher power. The commission will also consider a Third Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would allow for increased power for certain 6-GHz operations controlled by automated frequency coordination systems and extend low-power indoor operations to cruise ships. (ET Docket No. 18-295)
• Establishing Transparency in Foreign Adversary Control—The commission will consider a Report and Order that would adopt new attestation and disclosure requirements for holders of commission-granted licenses, leases, authorizations, permits, grants and other approvals, that would enhance public transparency over foreign adversary control over U.S. communications networks operators. (GN Docket No. 25-166)
• Promoting Clarity By Codifying and Simplifying Foreign Ownership Rules—The commission will consider a Report and Order that would adopt clarifications to its foreign ownership rules and practices for foreign investment in common-carrier wireless and aeronautical radio, and broadcast licensees to reduce unnecessary burdens on industry while continuing to protect the public interest, including national security, law enforcement, foreign policy, and trade policy. (GN Docket No. 25-149)
• Modernizing Internet-based Telecommunications Relay Services—The Commission will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would seek comment on enhancements for internet protocol (IP) relay and video relay services (VRS), administrative reforms to streamline the TRS program, updating or eliminating obsolete rules and closing outdated dockets. (CG Docket Nos. 03-123, 10-51, 12-38)

The Open Meeting is scheduled to start 10:30 a.m. ET in the Commission Meeting Room of the FCC, 45 L Street, N.E., Washington, D.C.

Open Meetings are streamed live at www.fcc.gov/live.

WASHINGTON—As a fast-paced and often controversial year for the Federal Communications Commission comes to a close, the agency’s Chair Brendan Carr has released a very long list of 75 items highlighting what he calls “the FCC’s key wins in 2025.”

Those items directly impacting broadcasters included: efforts to liberalize NextGen TV rules; investigations to hold broadcasters `accountable to their public interest obligations’; completing the approval process for the Skydance acquisition of Paramount with promises that the new owners would “root out the bias that has undermined trust in the national news media”; the launch of a wide-ranging FCC investigation into network affiliate relationships; the approval of 84 construction permits for TV and radio stations; and rulings that approved station deals allowing station groups to own two top four stations in a market.

“2025 was a historic year for the FCC and I am proud of all the wins we were able to achieve for the American people,” Carr said in a statement. “I want to express my thanks and appreciation to the agency’s talented staff for the great and efficient results that they delivered all year long. But this is just the beginning. The FCC is firing on all cylinders, and we will build on this momentum to deliver even more wins in 2026.”

More specifically, the FCC described some of the “key wins” that most closely touched broadcasters as follows:

• “Approved Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount CBS. As specified in the FCC’s record, Skydance made written commitments to ensure that the new company's programming embodies a diversity of viewpoints from across the political and ideological spectrum. Skydance also adopted measures that can root out the bias that has undermined trust in the national news media, and committed to enhancing local news and reporting.
• “Sought public comment for the first time in more than 15 years on the relationship between the large, national programmers on the one hand and the many local broadcast television stations on the other.
• “Opened the airwaves and unleashed new voices through grant of 84 construction permits for new noncommercial TV, FM, and low power radio stations. Processed over 7600 other broadcast licensing matters, including 887 license assignments and transfers, plus 714 license renewals.
• “Approved the first new ownership combination of two full-power, top-four ranked, same-market television stations in over five years. Later approved another top-four television station ownership combination.
• “Took action to support and accelerate the nation’s ongoing transition to Next Gen TV (also known as ATSC 3.0). This new technology represents the future of broadcasting and promises to modernize the nation's free and local over-the-air television service, which serves as a vital source of local news and information for many Americans.
• “Removed 98 broadcast rules and requirements that have been identified as obsolete, outdated, or unnecessary, including rules dating back nearly 50 years ago for technologies that have been far surpassed in the media marketplace.
• “Voted to remove 11 outdated and useless rule provisions, including obsolete regulations on telegraph, rabbit-ear broadcast receivers, and telephone booths.
• “Held broadcasters accountable to their public interest obligations and empowered them to serve the interests of local communities."

The full list can be found here.

WASHINGTON—In the wake of an executive order from President Trump and a determination by an Executive Branch Interagency body that foreign made drones pose “unacceptable risks” to U.S. security, the Federal Communications Commission has updated its “Covered List” of banned technologies and products to include all new foreign made unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and all UAS critical components.

The move effectively bans sales of new drones and components by the Chinese manufacturer DJI, which dominates the drone market in the U.S. and other foreign makers.

It does not, the FCC stressed, impact a consumer’s ability to continue using drones they previously purchased or acquired. “Nor does today’s decision prevent retailers from continuing to sell, import, or market device models approved earlier this year or previously through the FCC’s equipment authorization process,” the agency said. “By operation of the FCC’s Covered List rules, the restrictions imposed by today’s decision apply to new device models.”

The move comes at a time when drone have become increasingly important in TV production, particularly for news and live sports. In 2025, for example, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) accepted Sinclair’s Declaration of Compliance for Operations Over People. That, Sinclair said, made it the first broadcaster authorized to fly drones over people and vehicles for newsgathering without a waiver from the government regulator.

As previously reported, the potential ban on new foreign drones, which has been brewing for months, has raised widespread concerns about the impact of any ban on new products or components.

“I welcome this Executive Branch national security determination, and I am pleased that the FCC has now added foreign drones and related components, which pose an unacceptable national security risk, to the FCC’s Covered List,” said FCC chair Brendan Carr in a statement. “Following President Trump’s leadership, the FCC will work closely with U.S. drone makers to unleash American drone dominance.”

By way of background, the FCC’s Covered List is a list of communications equipment and services that are deemed to pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the U.S. or the safety and security of U.S. persons. Under the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act, the Commission can update the Covered List only at the direction of national security authorities. In other words, the Commission cannot update this list on its own and is required to implement determinations that are made by our national security agency experts.

Equipment on the Covered List (“covered” equipment) is prohibited from getting FCC equipment authorization. Most wireless devices require FCC equipment authorization prior to importation, marketing, or sale in the U.S. Covered equipment is banned from receiving new equipment authorizations, preventing new devices from entering the U.S. market.

In making the determination to ban new foreign-made drones, national security agencies referenced, among other things, concerns that that foreign-made UAS could be used for attacks and disruptions, unauthorized surveillance, sensitive data exfiltration, and other UAS threats to the homeland. Additionally, the determination noted that reliance on such devices unacceptably undermines the U.S. drone industrial base, the FCC reported.

The full Public Notice on can be found here.

WASHINGTON—During its December open meeting, the Federal Communications Commission voted to adopt rules for Low Power TV, TV Translator and Class A (LPTV Service) broadcasters that the agency said will give them additional regulatory clarity in how they use their licenses.

The updates are designed to reflect the changes in the broadcast industry since the LPTV Service was established more than forty years ago and to strengthen LPTV Service broadcasters’ ability to compete in local media markets.

The Commissioners voted unanimously to approve the updates in a Report & Order called “Amendment of the Commission’s Rules to Advance the LPTV, TV Translator and Class A Television Service”, MB Docket No. 24-148.

In a statement on the Report & Order, FCC Chair Brendan Carr noted that in 1982, the Commission created LPTV Service to bring local television to viewers who were “otherwise unserved or underserved” by full power television broadcasters.

While those stations are now an established component of the nation’s television system, delivering free, over-the-air, including locally produced programming, to millions of viewers in both rural and urban communities, “our LPTV Service rules have not been updated to keep pace with industry realities or to address regulatory uncertainties where they exist,” Carr said.

To address that, he said “today’s action modernizes the LPTV regulatory framework so licensees can make informed business decisions about their station operations, while ensuring the American people continue to benefit from their services. Among the actions taken to achieve this goal, the item streamlines and formalizes regulatory processes, takes steps to preserve existing and promote new service, establishes a level playing field by eliminating inconsistencies within our rules, and provides certainty for licensees by establishing clear rules of the road.”

“The rules we adopt will ensure that the LPTV Service continues to flourish and serve the public interest well into the future,” he concluded. “I look forward to seeing the positive results of this action and continuing to monitor the steps that broadcasters take to address the needs of local communities across the nation.”

The FCC described the specific features of the Report and Order as follows:

• Updates how relocation distances are calculated for displaced and channel sharing LPTV/TV translators stations.
• Establishes a uniform maximum relocation distance for all minor modification applications.
• Establishes a formal method for LPTV Service stations to specify a community of license.
• Requires stations in the LPTV Service to utilize a call sign that matches their service designation (existing LPTV/Class A call signs are grandfathered).
• Establishes a formal process for LPTV Service stations to change their service designation.
• Clarifies what EAS equipment must be installed by LPTV stations.
• Clarifies the video program responsibilities of LPTV/TV translators.
• Revises and expands the displacement rule to clearly enumerate the circumstances that qualify LPTV/TV translator stations for displacement and eliminate the displacement public notice period.
• Updates technical rules to help prevent interference.
• Removes obsolete rules.
• Permits LPTV/TV translator channel sharing stations to apply for their own channels.
• Declines to adopt new LPTV minimum operating hours; limit community of license changes; restrict service designation changes; or limit applicants' ability to round distance calculations.

More information is available here.

WASHINGTON—Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr appeared before a Senate oversight committee on Wednesday and faced harsh criticism by Democrats on various topics, including threats against TV broadcasters for carrying ABC comedian Jimmy Kimmel. One senator said Carr should resign.

[This article originally appeared in our sister publication, Radio World; their extensive coverage of regulatory and business issues can be found here.]

Republican Olivia Trusty and Democrat Anna Gomez also appeared and faced direct questioning from committee members, but the controversial chairman was the main focus.

Issues raised during the meeting included Carr’s “Delete, Delete, Delete” initiative to do away with outdated regulations, spectrum reallocation and current broadcast ownership rules.

But it was Carr’s use of public interest and “news distortion” policies that sparked the most debate.

Carr had met in advance with several Senate Republicans to prepare for the onslaught of questions. He touted his accomplishments in an opening statement, saying the pipeline has reopened to freeing more spectrum to advance next-generation technologies now that Congress has restored the commission’s auction authority.

However, following statements by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chairman of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, and ranking member Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the committee quickly focused its questions on Carr and his actions in his first year as chairman.

At the center of much of the hearing was Carr’s actions following the Kimmel monologue controversy. Carr was critical of Kimmel’s comments on his late-night TV show and faced backlash after pressuring broadcasters to take the ABC program off the air in late September. Carr warned then that local broadcasters that aired Kimmel could face fines or loss of licenses.

At the time, Cruz was sharply critical of Carr. He took a more conciliatory tone during the hearing.

Cruz did say that the government cannot “force private entities to take actions that the government cannot take directly. Government officials threatening adverse consequences for disfavored content is an unconstitutional coercion that chills protected speech.”

Carr defended his actions, saying he was enforcing the public-interest standard as charged by Congress. “We should be enforcing those rules and policies,” he said.

Republicans on the committee were generally complimentary of Carr’s policies. Carr clashed often with Democrats, including Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.

“After Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue, you went on a podcast and suggested that ABC should take Kimmel off the air, saying, ‘We can do this the easy way or the hard way.’ Those were your words. Do you think it is appropriate to use your position to threaten companies that broadcast political satire?” she asked.

Carr responded: “I think any licensee that operates on the public airwaves has a responsibility to comply with the public interest standard, and that’s been the case for decades.”

Klobuchar asked Carr for his thoughts on comments made by President Donald Trump on social media this week following the stabbing deaths of actor Rob Reiner and his wife.

“Senator, look, Democrats on this dais are accusing me of engaging in censorship, and now you’re trying to encourage me to police speech on the internet. I’m simply not going to do it,” Carr replied.

He continued: “Let’s step back. Broadcast TV is fundamentally different than any other forms of media, whether it’s cable or podcast or soapbox on the main street. There’s a public trustee model that Congress has set up.”

Carr deflected some of the Democrats’ criticism of his attempts to chill free speech. He said that Democrats in Congress previously wrote letters to cable companies pressuring them to drop Fox News, One America News Network and Newsmax because they disagree with the political perspectives of those cable channels.

“We have jurisdiction with respect to the broadcast airwaves uniquely to ensure that their operations are in the public interest, and there’s very specific rules in broadcast hoaxes and news distortion,” he said.

Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) charged the chairman with turning the FCC into the “Federal Censorship Commission.” Markey said Carr should resign.

“Chairman Carr, you are not reinvigorating the public interest standard; you are weaponizing the public interest standard. That is what the Carr FCC is doing every single day.”

Markey also discussed the FCC’s investigation of a San Francisco radio station that reported on an ICE raid in real time on air. KCBS (AM) San Francisco aired an immigration enforcement report; Carr had accused KCBS of failing to operate in the public interest and opened an inquiry.

A recent report in the Los Angeles Times said station staffers later claimed Carr’s complaints eventually sparked changes to the station’s newsroom operations due to political pressure.

Carr testified: “Broadcasters understand perhaps for the first time in years that they’re going to be held accountable to the public interest, to broadcast hoaxes rules, to the news distortion policy. I think that’s a good thing.”

Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) debated Carr on whether the chairman considers the FCC an independent agency. “Senator, thanks for that question. I think there’s a test for this in the law, and the key portion of that test…” Carr said before being interrupted by the senator.

“Yes or no is all we need, sir. Yes or no, is it independent?” he asked.

Carr: “The FCC’s not an independent agency formally speaking.”

Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich) asked Carr about free speech for broadcasters.

“So this should be a pretty easy question. Do you think the FCC should protect free speech?” Peters asked.

Carr: “Yes.”

“Okay. So if you will not revoke licenses…you won’t revoke licenses or retaliate if they’re simply engaging in free speech?”

“Senator, first of all, the Supreme Court has expressly said there is no First Amendment right to an FCC license. And the Supreme Court has said that the FCC enforcing the public interest standard on licensees is not a violation of the First Amendment or censorship,” Carr replied.

Other topics were brought up during the meeting, including broadcast-ownership rules that are the subject of the next scheduled quadrennial review. Republican Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas urged the commission to change the ownership rules to enable local broadcasters to compete with today’s media giants.

“Local broadcasters are hugely important and provide the news, the weather, the sports; and we need to make certain that their viability is enhanced by ownership rules that the commission has talked about and considering,” Moran said.

Carr has repeatedly indicated strong support for broadcast ownership reform but didn’t offer an opinion during the oversight committee hearing.

Committee member Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) asked about Carr’s efforts to stem a new form of payola, what she called “show-ola” in which broadcast stations allegedly pressure artists to play their station events in exchange for airplay.

“They particularly like to couple this with threats of reduced airplay if the band or the artist cannot give them these free events,” Blackburn said.

Carr replied: “Historically, there’s been a law on the books that prevents radio stations from accepting or seeking unreported payment of money or any other compensation to influence airplay, the time that music is played on the station.

“One concern that you brought to my attention early on, including through a letter earlier this year, is that a lot of radio stations are holding music festivals, and the concern that’s been raised is that they are effectively pressuring musicians, that could be ones that are well off or ones that are just getting started, to perform for free under threat that they may suffer airplay on radio stations if they don’t do that. I think that’s a concern. We issued an enforcement advisory right after being aware of this from you, and we are going to be and are investigating some issues around this.”

This was the first Senate Commerce Committee oversight hearing with all seated FCC commissioners present in more than five years, though the FCC normally has five, not three, members.

[This article originally appeared in our sister publication, Radio World; More of their coverage of regulatory and business issues can be found here.]

WASHINGTON—The Federal Communications Commission said it has closed 2,048 inactive proceedings, the largest number of dormant dockets ever terminated in a single proceeding by the regulator.

Terminating these proceedings was part of an effort to promote good governance, increase efficiency and modernize agency processes in the digital age, the regulator said.

“This is…just the latest example of good governance here at the FCC,” FCC Chair Brendan Carr said in a statement. “By closing dormant proceedings, the FCC can help provide the regulatory certainty needed for investments and deployments in communities across the country. I commend the entire agency for all of their hard work in this record-breaking proceeding.”

The dockets closed in today’s termination order were reviewed by the Consumer and Government Affairs Bureau in coordination with the responsible bureaus and offices for the Ninth Dormant Proceedings Termination Public Notice, the FCC said.

The proceedings listed in the file attachment to the order will be terminated in the FCC’s Electronic Comment Filing System once published in the Federal Register. The record in the terminated proceedings will remain part of the commission’s official records, and the various pleadings, orders and other documents in these proceedings will continue to be accessible to the public.

The action is distinct from the commission’s recent “In Re: Delete, Delete, Delete” proceeding. While both proceedings seek to streamline commission operations and reduce regulatory burdens, the termination order seeks to eliminate inactive dockets. “Delete, Delete, Delete” seeks to reduce unnecessary regulations and outdated rules, the agency said.

In a social media post on Nov. 23, President Donald Trump linked to a Newsmax article that said lifting FCC station ownership caps would be a “disaster for conservatives.” Trump also complained that if proposals to lift the cap “would allow the Radical Left Networks to ‘enlarge,’ I would not be happy…If anything make them SMALLER!”

The attachment of the Newsmax story indicated that the post clearly backed positions taken by Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy in articles and filings with the Federal Communications Commission that oppose lifting the ownership caps. One America News, another staunchly pro-Trump cable network, has also come out against ownership deregulation.

It’s unclear, though, if Trump’s post will have any impact on the FCC’s ongoing reexamination of ownership caps. Regulations currently limit the audience reach of a single TV station group to no more than 39% of total U.S. television viewership.

FCC Chair Brendan Carr has repeatedly signaled his willingness to lift at least some of the ownership caps as a way to strengthen local broadcasters. He phrases his support as a means of limiting the power of national networks, which he says are biased, and strengthening local affiliates.

As part of that effort, the FCC recently launched a widespread probe into broadcast network-affiliate relations.

But Carr has gone out of his way to support and praise Trump in ways not seen for many decades at the supposedly independent regulatory agency. He has also been criticized by former FCC chairs and commissioners for investigating network affiliates who have provided critical coverage of President Trump or shows, such as “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” that Trump wants to see taken off the air.

The impact of the post is also difficult to interpret because Trump has repeatedly issued statements that either confuse the authority of the FCC or simplify regulatory issues in ways that are misleading.

Trump, for example, has repeatedly called on the FCC to yank the licenses for broadcast networks even though the FCC does not license broadcast networks like ABC, CBS, NBC or Fox.

The FCC does have licensing authority over all broadcast stations, including network affiliates that carry network news and programming. Attempts to regulate the content of those newscasts are, however, highly controversial.

In addition the station groups owned by major companies like Disney, NBCUniversal and Fox are not close to the ownership limits and would not be immediately impacted by raising or dropping the 39% cap.

Currently the Fox station group is the largest in terms of the way the FCC measures coverage at 26%, followed by CBS (owned by Paramount) at 24%. Both ABC (Disney) and NBC (Comcast) have about 20%, according to BIA Advisory Services data posted by TVNewsCheck.

Failure to lift the caps could have an important impact on pending deals by several station groups, most notably Nexstar Media Group’s acquisition of Tegna, which would give it about 54% coverage.

In response to Trump's post, Nexstar issued a statement. “We continue to believe that the landscape is ripe for regulatory reform and that we are on the path to completing our transaction,“ the station group said. “We agree with President Trump that the status quo is no longer acceptable, nor should the government do anything to strengthen the stranglehold of legacy media and Big Tech on the marketplace of ideas. Those platforms already reach into every pocket, purse, and backpack in America, and the best way to disrupt their monopolistic power is to allow local broadcasters an opportunity to compete on a level playing field.

“Americans want more access to local news and a variety of voices without the filter of the coastal elites,” Nexstar continued. “By modernizing the FCC’s rules, regulators will ensure that local communities benefit from an array of fact-based local journalism—the anti-fake news—for years to come. This is an historic opportunity to change the status quo and deliver a win for Americans across the country who are weary of legacy media’s leverage over local broadcasters.”

In response to controversial efforts by the Federal Communications Commission to investigate broadcasters for airing biased news coverage, a group of seven former commissioners and chairs, plus additional senior-level former staff, have submitted a sternly worded petition to the agency slamming its attempts “to mold the speech of private broadcasters to the FCC’s own view of what is correct.”

The petition asks the agency to rescind the news distortion policy, which has “significantly chilled and otherwise altered the content of broadcasters’ speech, undermining First Amendment values.”

The petition is in response to several highly controversial investigations by the FCC into allegations of “biased” news coverage by ABC, CBS and NBC of President Trump and comments by FCC Chair Brendan Carr that the regulator has the power to punish broadcasters and potentially even remove broadcast licenses from stations violating “public interest” and “news distortion” rules.

The petitioners are a bipartisan group of former FCC chairs, commissioners, and other senior leaders who served the agency between 1981 and 2017. Signing on were Andrew C. Barrett, Rachelle B. Chong, Ervin S. Duggan, Mark S. Fowler, Dennis R. Patrick, Alfred C. Sikes, Thomas E. Wheeler, Christopher J. Wright, Kathryn C. Brown, Jerald N. Fritz and Peter Pitsch. The petitions were represented by Protect Democracy, TechFreedom, Andrew Jay Schwartzman and Gigi Sohn.

That controversy became particularly heated after Carr used the news distortion policy to accuse ABC and Disney of news distortion and threaten ABC affiliates’ licenses for airing controversial comments by late night host Jimmy Kimmel’s regarding the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

The news distortion policy also provided the basis earlier this year for threats against CBS News during the lengthy FCC review of the Paramount-Skydance merger.

Skydance won approval for the merger after it agreed to end Paramount’s DEI efforts, paid $16 million to settle a libel suit filed by President Donald Trump and promised to name an ombudsman to ensure unbiased coverage at CBS News.

"As the Supreme Court has made clear, the government has no legitimate role in un-biasing or balancing the media," said Fowler, the FCC chair from 1981-87 under Republican President Ronald Reagan. "The news distortion policy allows the government to threaten censorship of speech it doesn't like; it cannot stand.”

“The Commission should focus on ensuring that all Americans are connected and have access to information and ideas — not imposing on broadcasters its vision of what presentation of the news is correct,” added Wheeler, who served as chair under Democratic President Barack Obama from 2013-17 and also joined in the petition. “The news distortion policy is being used by the current FCC leadership as a tool of speech coercion and that abuse will not stop until the agency repeals it.”

“The FCC has no business policing free speech,” said Conor Gaffney, counsel at Protect Democracy, a not-for-profit that works to combat authoritarian threats. “It is not for the federal government to decide what is ‘biased’ any more than it is for the government to decide what is ‘news.’ The Supreme Court has ruled time and again that policing speech is not the government’s job.”

“Carr’s threats have worked despite their unconstitutionality because the FCC has extraordinarily vast leverage over broadcasters,” added Berin Szóka, president of TechFreedom, a think tank dedicated to defending free speech, the Constitution and the rule of law. “Carr so clearly abused that leverage that even his fellow Republican, Sen. Ted Cruz, compared his tactics to a ‘mafioso, … right out of Goodfellas.’ Critical speech has been, and will be, chilled. Disney bent, even if it didn’t break. Fearing retaliation, many comedians and journalists will self-censor, or their corporate employers will muzzle them. The news distortion policy is too dangerous a weapon to entrust to any Chair.”

The petition argues that the FCC’s crackdown on news distortion violated longstanding free speech precedents and Supreme Court rulings while creating a climate of fear designed to chill free speech and reduce criticism of the Trump administration.

“The petitioners request that the FCC repeal the news distortion policy in full,” the petition said. “In Moody v. NetChoice, LLC, the Supreme Court, applying the First Amendment, reaffirmed that the government has no role in ‘un-biasing’ the media. In direct contradiction to that decision, the news distortion policy seeks to mold the speech of private broadcasters to the FCC’s own view of what is correct, complete, and accurate news. The First Amendment forbids the government from embarking on such a project.

“Furthermore, the application of the news distortion policy is constitutionally problematic,” the petition continued. “The vast scope and vague language of the news distortion policy cast an omnipresent shadow over broadcasters’ freedom of expression while leaving the policy open to partisan weaponization. Wielding the news distortion policy, the FCC has already opened or threatened to open investigations against private broadcasters due to disagreements with editorial decisions or statements made in a comedic monologue. Even if the FCC never tries to take enforcement action in these cases, the specter of government interference alone chills broadcasters’ speech and suppresses their message.”

“Because the FCC has no legitimate interest in correcting or punishing what it considers to be slanted news coverage, the news distortion policy lacks a meaningful function,” the petition concluded. “Over a period of 60 years, the FCC only enforced the policy eight times, typically in cases involving an intentional hoax. However, such cases are now covered by the FCC’s broadcast hoax role, rendering the news distortion policy a vestigial organ. In light of its redundancy and obsolescence, as well as its actively harmful effects, amply demonstrated as of late, the petitioners respectfully request the repeal of the news distortion policy.”

Both Carr and Commissioner Olivia Trusty, who make up the FCC’s Republican majority, argue Congress clearly gave the commission the power to enforce public-interest standards on stations because they receive licenses to use scarce spectrum.

The Nov. 13 petition by seven FCC chairs and commissioners follows comments made earlier this year by five former FCC chairs and commissioners in opposition to the onging investigation of CBS News for “news distortion.” They accused the FCC of acting as the “White House’s personal censor.”

The full petition can be found here.

WASHINGTON—Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr has weighed in on the blackout of ABC, ESPN and other Disney programming on YouTube TV with a post on X says that said the two parties “need to get a deal done and end this blackout.”

“People should have the right to watch the programming they paid for — including football,” he added.

After failing to reach a deal on new retransmission consent payments for ABC and a carriage agreement for Disney’s ESPN and other cable channels, the Disney services were removed from the vMVPD at the end of October when the old agreement expired..

Since the dispute first went public in late October, both sides have traded barbs, blaming the other part for the blackout. YouTube TV has attacked Disney for insisting on terms that would push up prices for pay TV subscribers, while Disney complained that “with a $3 trillion market cap, Google is using its market dominance to eliminate competition and undercut the industry-standard terms we’ve successfully negotiated with every other distributor.”

YouTube has offered subscribers a $20 credit and in a separate post on X said they were "working to negotiate a deal with Disney that pays them fairly for their content and returns their programming to YouTube TV."

WASHINGTON—Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr said he has circulated a proposal for the agency to auction additional midband spectrum in the Upper C-band to commissioners.

The proposal would allow the FCC to take an important step towards implementing actions mandated in President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which restored the agency’s auction authority and requires it to complete a system of competitive bidding for at least 100 MHz in the Upper C-band no later than July 2027.

The commission will vote on the draft notice at its November open meeting.

Few details about the draft are available. It is being circulated among the commissioners, but is not on the agency’s website.

The proposals, however, are likely to be controversial among broadcasters because some of the spectrum in question is widely used for satellite delivery of TV, radio, video, sports, news and other media.

The Oct. 29 draft notice of proposed rulemaking is in addition to a proposal Carr made in February to auction additional spectrum. As part of a notice of inquiry adopted at the FCC’s Feb, 27 open meeting, the agency is seeking comment on the possibility of opening up additional portions of the midband spectrum range known as the Upper C-band (3.98-4.2 GHz) to help meet projected spectrum demand, spur economic growth, and advance American security interests.

If the draft of the newest spectrum auction proposal is adopted on Nov. 20, the FCC will seek comment on a range of options, including auctioning up to 180 megahertz of spectrum in the 3.98-4.2 GHz band for next-gen wireless services.

The FCC said it will consider "all options within that range, with the ultimate goal of maximizing the amount of spectrum to be repurposed as generational aviation safety upgrades occur in the adjacent band."

“President Trump has been clear that America is going to lead the world in next-generation technologies,” Carr said in a statement announcing the new proposals on Oct. 29. “That is why the FCC’s Build America Agenda prioritizes the work needed to restore U.S. leadership in wireless. And thanks to President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, the Commission now has the tools to deliver on that goal. Specifically, the Bill authorizes and requires the FCC to auction prime, mid-band spectrum in the Upper C-Band, and my proposal aims to maximize the amount of spectrum available for 5G and 6G services.”

“Restoring America’s leadership position is important," Carr added. "After all, freeing up spectrum drives down prices for consumers, creates jobs, and increases competition. It also plays a vital role in promoting our national security and geopolitical interests. We’ve seen how the Lower C-band powers in-home and high-speed mobile broadband across the country."

WASHINGTON—Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr has called for an end to the government shutdown while providing some updates on the agency’s ongoing work if the shutdown continues through the end of the year.

During his press conference at the end of the October open meeting, Carr said the agency would hold an open meeting on Thursday, No. 20, to vikte on items and issues it had been working on before the shutdown.

[Editor’s note: Detailed coverage of FCC operations impacted by the shutdown can be found here. That article was originally published in our sister publication, Radio World. ]

Carr also said the FCC has been working with about 20% of its staff and said it had enough other items for a December meeting.

Carr did not specify what items it might consider in November or December. Those agendas are typically announced about three weeks before the Open Meeting.

In remarks to reporters, Carr, a Republican appointee, complained about the shutdown, which he called “the Schumer shutdown.”

“I think there's been a dozen votes to try to reopen the government, and we are seeing negative consequences, obviously, already at the FCC, for one, we've got our own national security officials who are…here working without pay,“ he said. ”There's been a lot of our equipment certification work that obviously has had to push pause on as you know, where there's no piece of electronics or communications device that can be sold or used in the U.S. without an approval for the FCC. And so we're starting to see a backlog there of licensing requests. We’re having issues there as well. And obviously the consumer complaint portal itself is also down. So I think it is, you know, past time…to reopen the government fully, and would be again fully staffed at the FCC.”

Carr also noted that about 20% of FCC employees were working. “We have employees that are sort of vital for national security and….additional set issues that are here and working,” he said. “We have exempted employees, which are a very small number of employees that we have back in the building doing significant work for the agency.

“In terms of the ability to pay, there's been an amount of carryover funds that the FCC has had, and also we have a separate appropriation for work on auctions-related spectrum issues,” he continued. “For this [October] meeting [where] obviously, we had nine [items]. We're not going to have nine, unfortunately, at the November meeting. But the nine were obviously, you know, largely baked fully before the shutdown hit, and we had sort of a skeleton crew able to take any…meetings people wanted, be able to respond to edits, obviously, come in and present the items.

“We're trying to be really good stewards of the limited dollars we have all the same time urging the full reopening of the government,” he said, adding: “Our plan is to try to continue to hold [Open] meetings as long as we can. Again, they won't be as full as this meeting because we have fewer staff. We're roughly 20% staffing at this point, and you know, we're gonna try to move ahead with November meeting...But again, the [items for]...November was largely done before the shutdown…I think you're gonna start to see a bit more difficulty going forward” after that.

Carr also reported that pre-shutdown the agency had an equivalent of about 1,300 full-time employees, one of the lowest headcounts in recent years.

“I think we're…below the lowest number of FTEs [full-time employees], at least from the chart that I've seen, in terms of the number of years that it goes back, and we're still churning out a tremendous amount of really good work product, at least before the shutdown.”

During a separate press conference, Commissioner Anna Gomez, the agency’s lone Democrat, criticized Carr for pushing ahead with votes on controversial items during the shutdown.

“You [might] imagine that the work the agency does would slow down while the government is closed, but the opposite happened for this meeting,” she complained. “Instead of focusing on only absolutely necessary items, the FCC voted on a whopping nine items today. This is the most items I have voted on in a single meeting since I became a Commissioner; nine items is a lot of work for a small team to handle at a meeting. But what made the decision to pad the FCC agenda during a government shutdown even more outrageous is that most of my staff is furloughed. My decades of experience in telecom policy helped me to keep up with a wide array of substantive subjects we covered at this month's meeting. But it was [still] like playing volleyball, with one hand tied behind my back. You have to be really good at spiking.”

This also created many problems for the public, she said.

“Stakeholders were affected as well,” she said. “Stakeholders were confused on whether the commissioners were still taking meetings to discuss the items…They didn't know who to reach out to because they knew staff was furloughed. I was even asked if the meeting was still taking place and still open to the public, a logical question, since the government at large is closed.”

“Overloading the agency's agenda during a government shutdown and providing no guidance to stakeholders about how to still reach decision makers is concerning enough,” she concluded. “Even more concerning was the theme that this month's agenda initially displayed based on the drafts initially circulated. This was set up to be the most anti-consumer agenda ever put forth during my time as a commissioner, and that was really troubling. Cloaked by a government shutdown, the FCC was set to propose a slew of anti-consumer measures in the name of deleting regulations.”

Gomez was referring to the fact that the Commission voted 2-1 to revise rules on broadband labels, robocalls and the regulation of prison telecommunications services that she opposed.

WASHINGTON—In response to criticism that the Federal Communications Commission has been “threatening” broadcast stations but has not actually taken any enforcement actions against them, FCC Chair Brendan Carr reiterated his plans to vigorously the “public interest standard” for broadcast stations and said that the agency was still investigating the complaints.

During a press conference following the agency’s October Open Meeting, Carr said that the agency was still investigating complaints against ABC, NBC and CBS affiliates for violating the public interest standard in their coverage of President Donald Trump. No decision had been made in those ongoing investigations, but they could still result in fines or other actions, he insisted.

Carr made the comments in response to a question about why the agency had threatened the stations but had not taken action against them. Critics have argued that the FCC is on shaky legal ground in trying to enforce "public interest" standards on broadcast stations. As a result, the agency has avoided taking enforcement actions, such as imposing fines or removing broadcast licenses, that could be easily challenged in court on First Amendment grounds.

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, the only Democrat among the three Commissioners, has argued those threats are “empty” and that their real purpose is to stifle critical coverage of the Trump administration. .

“We may very well get” to the point of issuing fines or taking other action against the broadcasters Carr said in response. “Remember, we've got a number of investigations that are underway right now. We have investigations going into NPR and PBS member stations as to whether or not they've been running commercial advertisements rather than permissible identifications. We have DEI inquiries going on [for] a number of providers right now. We have sought comment on complaints that have been filed under various FCC rules that have to do with broadcasters. And again, you'll remember where we are in a process here [that is] 10 months in. At this point, we have a number of investigations that are underway, we are getting documents and information back…”

“So when you look at how you run these things, I'm not sure that there would be [any] sort of enforcement action that would have proceeded to an official document at this point in time,” Carr said. “But we may very well get back there.”

Carr also reiterated his view that “the FCC should be enforcing the public interest standard. That's not a threat. That's just something that Congress has asked us to do.”

Carr also responded to a separate question as to why the FCC has not acted on complaints by the Center for American Rights, against CBS, ABC and NBC stations. The CAR complaint alleged they offered biased coverage of Donald Trump during the 2024 presidential campaign and that the FCC should investigate them for "news distortion."

“That was one of the complaints that I indicated earlier,” Carr said. “…We are ten months in, and you're developing a record, and you're looking at all the facts, you're weighing the record as it develops, we may move forward that [or] we may not. We haven't made a decision there again. Ten months in, I think we're at an appropriate place with the number of investigations and the complaints that we have sought public comment on.”

Carr admitted that only the CBS case has been opened to public comment.

In addition to criticism from Gomez and other Democrats, Carr has faced criticism from some conservatives, such as Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) who fear that his investigations could limit free speech in ways that could eventually backfire on conservatives.

WASHINGTON—Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told The Wall Street Journal in an interview that he plans to introduce legislation that would make it easier for people to sue the government over censorship.

The yet-to-be-introduced bill—which comes in the wake of the controversy over the brief suspension of ABC late-night show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”—would make it easier for people to collect damages from government censorship. It would also codify protections from government censorship, Cruz told the WSJ.

Cruz is one of a handful of Republicans who have been highly critical of Federal Communication Commission Chair Brendan Carr after he suggested to podcaster Benny Johnson that the FCC could take action against ABC affiliates that aired the show. On his own podcast, “Verdict With Ted Cruz,“ the Texas senator called Carr’s threats “dangerous as hell” and did a “Goodfellas”-style imitation of Carr as a gangster attempting to shake down media outlets.

“If the government gets in the business of saying, ‘We don’t like what you, the media, have said; we’re going to ban you from the airwaves if you don’t say what we like’— that will end up bad for conservatives,” Cruz said.

In his newest comments, Cruz provided few specifics about the bill, except to say it was in the works prior to the Kimmel controversy and that it stemmed from efforts by the Biden administration to remove misinformation on COVID-19 from social media platforms.

Cruz also said that he was willing to go on Kimmel’s show to promote the bill.

Similar legislation has been unsuccessfully introduced in the past and has run up against opposition from members of Congress who raised significant concerns about how it might be implemented. One notable problem is that it might make it more difficult to take down content like “beheadings,” “violent, racist attacks,” “sexual assaults” and other videos that social media platforms have deemed to be offensive.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is expected to testify in front of the Senate Commerce Committee, according to a report in Semafor.

Although no agenda has been made public, his testimony is expected to revolve around Carr's recent actions surrounding the suspension of "Jimmy Kimmel Live" on ABC.

The committee, which oversees the FCC, is led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who, in a rare rebuke to the Trump administration, criticized Carr’s handling of the suspension of the late night talk show host two weeks ago. Kimmel had made what many Republicans considered offensive comments about the assassination of right wing commentator Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10.

After Kimmel’s remarks, Carr commented about the controversy on a podcast; comments that many saw as a veiled threat against ABC, the network that broadcasts Kimmel.

“Frankly, when you see stuff like this, I mean, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way,” Carr said on the Benny Johnson podcast. “These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

Carr denied that these comments were an implied threat, telling reporters on Tuesday that they were misconstrued.

“There was no threat made or suggested that if Jimmy Kimmel didn’t get fired, that someone was going to lose their license,” Carr said. “I’ve seen that there’s a lot of Democrats that are writing letters saying that is what happened, and it simply didn’t.”

After ABC announced that it was suspending Kimmel, criticism came not only from Democrats, but Republicans as well, and in particular, Cruz, who said Carr’s comments were “dangerous as hell.”

According to the report in Semafor, the date for Carr’s appearance along with the two other FCC commissioners, Republican Olivia Trusty and Democrat Anna Gomez, could be in November but has not been confirmed.

WASHINGTON—The FCC today voted to seek public comment on whether to retain, modify, or eliminate several longstanding broadcast ownership regulations in light of the dramatic shifts in the modern media landscape.

At its monthly meeting, the commission voted 3-0 to adopt a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to look at local television rules that limit the number of television stations a single entity can own in a local market as well as the dual network rule that prohibits a merger between any of the top four national broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC). Also up for review is the local radio ownership rule that imposes caps on the number of radio stations one entity can own in a local market.

TV broadcast ownership rules currently restrict one station group from owning TV stations that reach more than 39% of U.S. TV households (the so-called “UHF discount” and duopoly rules allow for higher thresholds).

These restrictions have been under fire by broadcasters for years, who have claimed that they prevent them from effectively competing with high tech companies, particularly those that have launched streaming services that are now bidding for lucrative professional sports rights. In addition, associations like the NAB have said that not updating ownership rules threatens the integrity of local journalism.

A major catalyst for the review's current direction was a July 2025 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. In that ruling, the court vacated the FCC's "Top-Four Prohibition," which had barred a single company from owning two of the top four television stations in the same market. Crucially, the court's decision also asserted that the statutory mandate for the quadrennial review is inherently deregulatory in nature, a legal interpretation that will heavily influence the current proceeding.

The NPRM approved does not propose specific rule changes. Instead, it poses a broad range of questions to the public and industry stakeholders. The commission is seeking extensive input on how the proliferation of streaming services, online video platforms, and other digital media should affect its analysis of competition, localism, and viewpoint diversity—the traditional pillars of its ownership regulations.

Carr noted the court’s July decision in his comments after the vote.

“We are guided by the court’s decision here,” he said. “And we intend to take a fresh approach to competition by examining the broader media marketplace, rather than treating broadcast radio and television as isolated markets. Our primary goal is to promote investment in local broadcasters who provide trusted news and information vital to the communities they serve. We will also consider whether public safety, national security, and other public interest goals should be part of this review process. If we determine that any rule no longer serves the public interest, we will fulfill our statutory duty to modify or eliminate those rules.”

Commissioner Anna Gomez, the lone Democrat on the commission, criticized the FCC for its actions against Jimmy Kimmel after pressure from FCC Chairman Carr prompted ABC to pre-empt the late night talk show for several days before he returned last week.

She called ABC owner Disney’s move “a new low of corporate capitulation that put the foundation of the First Amendment in danger.”

Indeed, prior to the vote, protestors could be heard shouting “fire the censorship czar!” in the online live stream of the meeting several times before audio went dead for about 30 seconds.

Gomez acknowledged the challenges currently facing the broadcast industry but criticized the motives behind the industry’s calls for changes.

“The commission requires locally licensed broadcasters to serve their communities of license in the public interest,” she said. “The key principles underlying this statement remain localism, viewpoint diversity and competition. Financial gains for corporate giants is not a basis to abandon our, and broadcasters’, obligations to serve the public interest.”

Although she said she believed that only Congress has the authority to raise the ownership cap, she voted to approve the motion.

“This Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is required by statute,” she said. “I support seeking comment on these very important issues and I look forward to productive engagement with stakeholders and remain focused on retaining rules necessary to serve the public interest.”

With the adoption of the NPRM, the next phase of the 2022 Quadrennial Review will be a public comment period. Once the notice is published in the Federal Register, interested parties will have a window of time to file comments and reply comments, providing data and legal arguments to the FCC. Following the comment period, the Commission will review the record before drafting and voting on a final Report and Order.

WASHINGTON—A letter from Democratic Senators to the Federal Communications Commission sharply criticized the agency for acting as a “roving press censor” and demanded that the FCC submit documents and answer questions about its role in the decision by ABC to indefinitely suspend “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”

“We are outraged by your comments yesterday on a podcast suggesting that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) would take action against ABC, its parent company Disney, and its affiliates, over comments made by comedian Jimmy Kimmel on his late-night show,” the Senators wrote. “It is not simply unacceptable for the FCC Chairman to threaten a media organization because he does not like the content of its programming—it violates the First Amendment that you claim to champion. The FCC’s role in overseeing the public airwaves does not give it the power to act as a roving press censor, targeting broadcasters based on their political commentary. But under your leadership, the FCC is being weaponized to do precisely that.”

In response to the criticism of FCC Chair Brendan Carr, President Donald Trump praised him, as a “patriot” and “tough guy” while repeating his previously expressed views that broadcasters airing criticism of him should lose their broadcast licenses.

"They give me only bad publicity or press," Trump said on Air Force One on Thursday in comments reported by ABC News and others. "And I mean, they're getting a license, I would think maybe their license should be taken away. It will be up to Brendan Carr."

U.S. Senators Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Ranking Member of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, which oversees the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), senior member of the Committee, Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Ranking Member of the Telecommunications and Media Subcommittee, and all Democratic members of the Committee sent the letter to FCC Chair Carr.

The letter was also signed by Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Senators Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the Senators reported.

“Under your leadership, the FCC appears to be discarding Congress’s clear directive in the Communications Act to ensure broadcasters act in the ‘public interest’—and is instead requiring them to act in ‘Trump’s interest.’” the letter continued. “This approach is an anathema to the Constitution. The consequences of your comments were quickly apparent. Hours later, Nexstar—a major owner of ABC affiliates that has a significant merger pending before the FCC—announced that it would take Kimmel off the air. Soon thereafter, Disney announced it was indefinitely suspending his show altogether. This is precisely what government censorship looks like.”

The letter also demanded answers to three questions by Sept. 25:

1. "How is the FCC defining the “public interest” standard to which broadcasters must adhere? To the extent that the FCC has adopted some new ideological or political neutrality test, how is the FCC defining ideological or political bias?"
2. "Did you, your staff, or any FCC staff have any communication with Disney, ABC, or their affiliates about Jimmy Kimmel, his Monday monologue, or his show between Monday, September 15, and today? If yes, we expect you to produce copies of all such communications.
3. "You publicly stated that ABC and Disney could “do this the easy way or the hard way.” Please detail the “easy way” and the “hard way” you were referencing in making this statement."

In an Sept. 18 interview reported on by Policyband, Carr denied that he had called Nexstar, Sinclair and ABC and said he had not put any personal pressure on them.

In a Sept. 17 interview, he did threaten to take away licenses of ABC affiliates who aired the show.

WASHINGTON—The controversy over ABC’s decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel, continues to heat up, with FCC Commissioner Anna M. Gomez blasting ABC's decision to suspend Kimmel’s show as “a shameful show of cowardly corporate capitulation by ABC that has put the foundation of the First Amendment in danger.”

The Writers Guild of America and the ACLU also issued strong statements attacking ABC, the FCC and the decision to suspend the program.

ABC dropped the program shortly after FCC Chair Brendan Carr threatened to revoke broadcast licenses of stations airing the show and Nexstar announced it would preempt the show on its 32 ABC affiliates that reach 126 million U.S. homes.

Meanwhile, the conservative Center for American Rights sent a supplemental complaint to the FCC attacking Kimmel, ABC and the KABC broadcast station for violating FCC "pubic interest" rules.

In the last year, the group has filed several complaints with the FCC asking the agency to investigate political bias at affiliates of broadcast networks that have provided coverage that is critical of the President Trump,

The group also filed a FCC complaint against Kimmel in early September. In its newest Sept. 17 "supplemental complaint" the group noted that Kimmel's comments on the death of Charlie Kirk provided proof for their that he had violated FCC rules.

“Two weeks ago, the Center for American Rights complained to this Commission that Jimmy Kimmel was operating his Jimmy Kimmel Live! program in line with his personal leftist political agenda rather than the public interest as law requires,” the Sept. 17 letter noted. “Unfortunately, we now have all the proof this Commission should need of his failure to meet his public interest responsibilities, as he misused the airwaves to act in callous disregard of the facts and the obligations he owes viewers and the truth.”

“ABC’s affiliates need to step up and hold ABC accountable as a network for passing through material that fails to respect the public-interest standard to which they are held,” the letter concluded. “Disney as ABC’s corporate owner needs to act directly to correct this problem. And if ABC won’t take Kimmel off the air for this, then this Commission should tell KABC-7 it will come off the air if that’s necessary to put an end to this outrage.”

Those views dovetail with those of FCC Chair Brendan Carr who had repeatedly argued the agency has the power to remove broadcast station licenses if they fail to provide “balanced coverage.”

Carr has also repeatedly signaled that the agency would like to weaken the power of broadcast networks, which he regularly attacks bias, and at the same time strengthen local broadcast affiliates.

In the wake of ABC's decision to suspend Kimmel's show indefinitely, Carr's views were widely criticized by free speech advocates, including the ACLU, the Writers Guild of America and the lone Democrat Commissioner on the FCC, Gomez.

In a statement, the Writers Guild of America West (WGAW) and Writers Guild of America East (WGAE) said "the right to speak our minds and to disagree with each other – to disturb, even – is at the very heart of what it means to be a free people. It is not to be denied. Not by violence, not by the abuse of governmental power, nor by acts of corporate cowardice. As a Guild, we stand united in opposition to anyone who uses their power and influence to silence the voices of writers, or anyone who speaks in dissent. If free speech applied only to ideas we like, we needn't have bothered to write it into the Constitution. What we have signed on to – painful as it may be at times – is the freeing agreement to disagree. Shame on those in government who forget this founding truth. As for our employers, our words have made you rich. Silencing us impoverishes the whole world. The WGA stands with Jimmy Kimmel and his writers."

Christopher Anders, director of the Democracy and Technology Division at the American Civil Liberties Union, also attacked the suspension and the FCC chair.

“Jimmy Kimmel is the latest target of the Trump administration’s unconstitutional plan to silence its critics and control what the American people watch and read," he said. "Cowering to threats, ABC and the biggest owner of its affiliate stations gave the Trump FCC chairman exactly what he wanted by suspending Kimmel indefinitely and dropping the show."

“This is beyond McCarthyism. Trump officials are repeatedly abusing their power to stop ideas they don’t like, deciding who can speak, write, and even joke.," he concluded. "The Trump administration's actions, paired with ABC's capitulation, represent a grave threat to our First Amendment freedoms.”

In response to the suspension, Gomez repeated her arguments that the FCC lacks the authority to remove broadcast licenses over news coverage and aired some of her strongest criticisms to date of the agency.

“We cannot allow an inexcusable act of political violence to be twisted into a justification for government censorship and control," she said. "First, an ABC reporter was told that his coverage amounted to hate speech and that he should be prosecuted simply for doing his job. Then, the FCC threatened to go after this same network, seizing on a late-night comedian’s inopportune joke as a pretext to punish speech it disliked. That led to a shameful show of cowardly corporate capitulation by ABC that has put the foundation of the First Amendment in danger."

“This FCC does not have the authority, the ability, or the constitutional right to police content or punish broadcasters for speech the government dislikes," she stressed. "If it were to take the unprecedented step of trying to revoke broadcast licenses, which are held by local stations rather than national networks, it would run headlong into the First Amendment and fail in court on both the facts and the law. But even the threat to revoke a license is no small matter. It poses an existential risk to a broadcaster, which by definition cannot exist without its license. That makes billion-dollar companies with pending business before the agency all the more vulnerable to pressure to bend to the government’s ideological demands."

"When corporations surrender in the face of that pressure, they endanger not just themselves, but the right to free expression for everyone in this country," she concluded. "The duty to defend the First Amendment does not rest with government, but with all of us. Free speech is the foundation of our democracy, and we must push back against any attempt to erode it.”

IRVING, Texas—Following threats from the Federal Communications Commission and the announcement that the nation's largest station group, Nexstar Media Group, would preempt ABC's late night “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” because of "offensive" comments made by the talk show host, ABC announced that it was taking the show off the air "Indefinitely."

ABC and Nexstar made their announcements after FCC Chair Brendan Carr denounced Kimmel's comments as "sick." In an interview on the "Benny Show", Carr threatened to take action to remove the licenses from ABC affiliates who aired the show.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take actions on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

Carr made the comments in an Sept. 17 appearance on Benny Johnson’s podcast, "Benny Show", which can be accessed below.

Kimmel's comments have been criticized for appearing to say that the alleged killer of Kirk was a MAGA supporter, an allegation that Carr called "sick."

Nexstar said it will drop the show "for the foreseeable future" because the station group strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk. Nexstar said it will replace the show with other programming in its ABC-affiliated markets.

In response to the Nexstar's decision, Carr wrote in a social media post that "I want to thank Nexstar for doing the right thing. Local broadcasters have an obligation to serve the public interest. While this may be an unprecedented decision, it is important for broadcasters to push back on Disney programming that they determine falls short of community values. I hope that other broadcasters follow Nexstar’s lead."

Nexstar issued this statement about its decision:

“Mr. Kimmel’s comments about the death of Mr. Kirk are offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse, and we do not believe they reflect the spectrum of opinions, views, or values of the local communities in which we are located,” said Andrew Alford, president of Nexstar’s broadcasting division. “Continuing to give Mr. Kimmel a broadcast platform in the communities we serve is simply not in the public interest at the current time, and we have made the difficult decision to preempt his show in an effort to let cooler heads prevail as we move toward the resumption of respectful, constructive dialogue.”

In response to the controversy, the FCC's lone Democrat, Anna Gomez said "an inexcusable act of political violence by one disturbed individual must never be exploited as justification for broader censorship or control. This Administration is increasingly using the weight of government power to suppress lawful expression, not because it glorifies violence or breaks the law, but because it challenges those in power or reflects views they oppose."

"We must stand firm against every attempt to silence dissent, punish satirists and government critics, and erode individual liberty. To surrender our right to speak freely is to accept that those in power, not the people, will set the boundaries of debate that define a free society," she continued.

WASHINGTON—The National Association of Broadcasters is applauding the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to put the delayed 2022 quadrennial review of broadcast ownership rules on its agenda this month.

“We commend [FCC} Chairman [Brendan] Carr for jump-starting the long-overdue 2022 Quadrennial Ownership Review. Outdated rules have held broadcasters back for too long,” said NAB President and CEO Curtis LeGeyt. “Modernizing them means stronger local journalism, more investment in communities and the live sports fans count on. Broadcasters welcome this long-awaited step forward.”

The NAB and other broadcasters have long been pushing the FCC and Congress to abolish ownership caps on broadcast station groups, which they contend put broadcasters at a competitive disadvantage to big tech companies. As part of that effort, the NAB launched another campaign last week to end those ownership rules.

It isn’t immediately clear, however, the 2022 Quadrennial Review will proceed. As of 7 p.m. ET, the FCC had not posted an agenda for its Sept. 30 Open Meeting or supplied materials relating to the items that will be under consideration at the meeting.

In a Sept. 8 blog post, however, Carr listed a number of items that will be under consideration in September. Near the bottom of his blog, in the fourth of five items on the list, he provided a few details regarding the quadrennial review.

“For our fourth item on the agenda, we will vote to kick off the commission’s quadrennial review of our broadcast ownership rules," Carr wrote. "The FCC is required by law to review certain broadcast ownership rules every four years to determine whether the rules remain ‘necessary in the public interest as the result of competition.’ We will be seeking comment on the Local Radio Ownership Rule, which limits the total number of radio stations that may be commonly owned in a local market; the Local Television Rule, which limits a single entity from owning more than two television stations in the same local market; and the Dual Network Rule, which prohibits a merger between or among the Big Four broadcast networks.”

Very notably, Carr did not mention national ownership caps, which is the primary focus of broadcast lobbying efforts.

The FCC is considering those national ownership caps in a separate docket.

In July, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the FCC’s rules against a station group owning more than one of the top-four TV stations in audience share in a given market. Both Carr and the NAB applauded that decision.

Eliminating those rules will help certain recently announced station swaps and sales pass regulatory review.

WASHINGTON—As part of an ongoing push to get the Federal Communications Commission to adopt rules that would strengthen local broadcasters and speed the transition to ATSC 3.0, Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley met this week with the agency’s Chair Brandan Carr, his chief of staff Greg Watson, and his senior counsel, Erin Boone, to discuss “the national television multiple ownership rule, as well as the National Association of Broadcasters’ petition for rulemaking asking the Commission to set a sunset date for ATSC 1.0 transmissions,” according to letter sent by Sinclair to the FCC.

In August 20 letter describing the August 19 meeting, Patrick McFadden, senior vice president, global public policy and communications at Sinclair, who also attended the meeting, noted they had reiterated their arguments for eliminating ownership caps in ways that “was consistent with our comments submitted in that proceeding.”

“With respect to the sunset of ATSC 1.0 transmissions, we discussed the emerging device market for ATSC 3.0 compatible receivers and consumers’ ability to purchase devices that allow them to continue to receive over-the-air signals after an ATSC 1.0 sunset,” McFadden wrote. “We emphasized the importance of the Commission continuing to move expeditiously in consideration of NAB’s petition for the benefit of consumers as well as broadcasters themselves.”

During the meeting, Sinclair executives also stressed that “the best way to spur the availability of more consumer devices is to provide certainty regarding a sunset. Further, as Sinclair noted in its comments in this proceeding, broadcasters are facing rapidly increasing competition from new platforms. ATSC 3.0 is a game-changing opportunity for broadcasters to diversify their revenue streams and ensure that they can continue to serve their viewers – but time is of the essence. We urge the Commission to issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in this proceeding promptly, which will then allow the Commission to develop a fulsome record that will support the sunset of ATSC 1.0 signals in the top 55 markets in February 2028, and the remaining markets in February 2030.”

The full letter is available here.

WASHINGTON—FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced the appointment of Courtney Cowper as a special assistant in his office. As a special assistant in the Office of Chairman Carr, Courtney Cowper will be responsible for managing administrative operations, scheduling, and travel arrangements for Carr.

Before joining his office, she spent nearly a decade in the technology and telecommunications policy space, most recently managing Honeywell’s Technology Experience Center in Washington, DC, where she led high-profile events, stakeholder engagement, and strategic communications initiatives. Prior to that, Cowper served as a director at Glen Echo Group, overseeing creative deliverables, client relations, and major policy gatherings for government, industry, and advocacy partners. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Classics (Latin & Greek), summa cum laude, from Kenyon College.

“I am very pleased that Courtney has agreed to join the FCC as a special assistant in my office,” Carr said in a statement. “Courtney brings a breadth of experience in project and organizational management, including in the tech space, which will serve her well in this role. She will be an instrumental part of our team, working to support the FCC’s work and deliver great results for the American people.”

WASHINGTON—The Federal Communications Commission’s Enforcement Bureau has issued its 2025 Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) audit letters to a randomly selected group of radio and television stations.

Each year, approximately five percent of all radio and television stations are selected for EEO audits.

A list of the radio and television stations selected for the 2025 audit, as well as the text of the Aug. 8 audit letter, is available here.

Given the FCC’s aggressive crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and successful efforts to get companies like Verizon Communications and Paramount to abandon DEI policies as part of merger reviews, some analysts had expected the agency to drop the audits.

“In our recent post on the FCC’s first EEO audit of the Carr administration at the FCC, we expressed surprise that the audit was released, thinking that the Commission might move to revise the EEO rules and put enforcement of the current rules on hold, just as it has done with the Biennial Ownership Reports,” attorney David Oxenford noted in a blog.

“But thanks to another attorney who more closely reviewed the language of the FCC’s audit letter and alerted me to changes in these letters, we now know that the audits actually go beyond the issues previously reviewed by the FCC—and seek out information about programs that favor one race, ethnicity or gender in hiring and other employment evaluations,” he continued. “The audits now seem to be aimed in part at seeking out the types of ‘invidious’ DEI programs—Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion — that the current administration has labeled as discriminatory in and of themselves in transactions involving the biggest players in the communications industry. The FCC now seems to be looking for evidence of these DEI programs at all broadcast stations, just as they are seeking to root out and end these policies in other industries throughout the country.”

Oxenford also stressed that whatever the future of these audits might be, stations need to reply to the letters and take them seriously as broadcasters have been fined in the past for not supplying the information.

The deadline for stations to upload responses to their FCC-hosted online public inspection files is Sept. 22.

The FCC said that stations seeking further information should contact the Enforcement Bureau at EB-EEO@fcc.gov or 202-418-1450.