FCC’s Gomez Comments on ABC-Disney Case After Public Comment Period Closes
FCC Commissioner Anna M. Gomez continues to address the Commission’s forcing ABC/Disney to go through an early license renewal for its eight owned-and-operated television stations ostensibly for “news distortion.” After the recent close of the public comment period in the matter, Gomez states, “When given the 
chance to weigh in on whether to allow the FCC to continue its campaign of censorship and control, the American public showed up in a big way, and the vast majority who spoke up delivered the same message. They believe in the value of their local news, they trust those who cover their communities, and they understand that the FCC has no business deciding who is a journalist and what counts as real news. A small number of partisan voices tried to hijack this process into a referendum on a network they dislike, but the public refuses to let local stations become collateral damage in the FCC’s political games. The FCC has no authority to police the ideological balance of the airwaves, and no matter what this Commission does next, the record now makes clear that this was never a genuine search for the public interest.”
Gomez’s press release adds, “In the docket covering the early license renewal proceeding, the agency received more than 150,000 comments. In the docket covering the FCC’s effort to unwind a more than two-decade old precedent recognizing the interview portion of ‘The View’ as a bona fide news program, the agency received nearly 80,000 comments. In both dockets, totaling more than 230,000 comments, the vast majority of commenters defended the stations and rejected the FCC’s attempt to use its licensing authority to punish constitutionally protected speech.”
but sources tell Reuters that it would likely be sometime after November. Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz criticized Carr for comments he made on the Benny Johnson podcast about late night talk host Jimmy Kimmel’s joke that appeared to threaten ABC/Disney and promise FCC action against the company if it didn’t take action on its own. On his Premiere Networks distributed podcast, “The Verdict with Ted Cruz,” Cruz said of Carr’s comments, “I got to say that’s right out of ‘Goodfellas.’ That’s right out of a Mafioso coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here. It would be a shame if something happened to it.’” Carr recently said that’s not what he meant and stated, “We don’t want to see weaponization of government by any administration against any perspective – and that’s certainly not what we’re doing here.”
Democrats in Congress have lashed out at FCC Chairman Brendan Carr for his statements about ABC/Disney and Jimmy Kimmel’s Charlie Kirk bit that got Kimmel suspended from “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Last week, Carr appeared on the Benny Johnson podcast and called Kimmel’s statements “some of the sickest conduct possible” and added, “This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney… We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” ABC/Disney has television affiliates owned by both Nexstar and Sinclair, which objected to Kimmel’s comments and threatened to pull Kimmel’s show from the air. Nexstar has a $6.2 billion 
merger with Tegna in the works and needs FCC approval and critics of Carr’s comments are calling him out for appearing to threaten ABC. Republican Senator Ted Cruz, on his Premiere Networks podcast ‘The Verdict,’ disagreed with Carr saying, “Let me tell you if the government gets in the business of saying, ‘We don’t like what you the media says. We’re going to ban you from the airwaves if you don’t say what we like.’ That will end up bad for conservatives.” President Trump – who’s publicly mused about investigating his media critics – weighed in after being asked about Cruz’s response by saying, “I think Brendan Carr’s a courageous person. I think Brendan Carr doesn’t like to see the airwaves be used illegal and incorrectly and purposefully horribly.”