By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON, Oct 6 (Reuters) - A lawyer for Walt Disney urged a US judge on Tuesday to block the Federal Communications Commission's early review of licenses for its eight company-owned ABC TV stations, saying President Donald Trump's administration is seeking to censor and punish the company for airing content it does not like.
The company's lawsuit, filed in August, poses a key test for the free speech rights of broadcasters under the US Constitution's First Amendment versus the Trump
administration's efforts to reshape the media landscape.
Trump has repeatedly urged broadcasters to drop comedy or news programs he dislikes or which have joked about or criticized him or his administration. The Republican president also has repeatedly called on the FCC to strip stations of licenses after criticizing news and other programming.
The First Amendment protects against government abridgment of free speech.
"Our concern is that we are chilled. We are making different editorial decisions," Disney lawyer Beth Wilkinson told US District Judge Loren AliKhan during a hearing in the company's suit seeking to block the unusual early FCC license reviews, comparing ABC's fate to being under a guillotine during the French Revolution.
"We are watching everything that we do because every time we do something — even not broadcasting this presidential speech — brings out the anger in the administration and the retaliation from the agency," Wilkinson said.
Wilkinson was referring to ABC's decision not to carry a live broadcast of a July 16 speech in which Trump revived his long-running attacks on US election security. Trump for years has made false claims of widespread US voting fraud. Comcast-owned NBC also did not broadcast Trump's speech live. Afterward, Trump called for both to lose their licenses.
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FCC Chair Brendan Carr ordered the early reviews of the ABC stations in April. The licenses for the eight stations — including some of Disney's most profitable ones in cities including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston — were not due to expire until 2028 to 2031. Carr said last week that he has made no decisions on how to proceed.
Dimitar Georgiev-Remmel, a lawyer for the administration, said the guillotine analogy was misplaced, noting that Disney in any circumstance would retain its ABC licenses through the administrative process and judicial review.
AliKhan previously declined to bar the FCC from issuing an order to refer the licenses for a public hearing. The FCC has agreed to provide at least 48 hours' notice to the court before moving ahead.
The judge held the two-hour-long hearing to help determine whether she should issue a preliminary injunction, as Disney has requested, to block the FCC's action.
Carr opened an investigation in March 2025 into Disney's diversity practices and said the company submitted documents he viewed as insufficient. Carr has said the early license renewal review was prompted by Disney's failure to quickly respond to those document requests.
During the hearing, AliKhan cited earlier comments by Trump and Carr, and questioned the administration's argument "that this is merely over a discovery dispute," referring to producing documents.
"I imagine we have a lot of discovery disputes with a lot of your licensees," the judge told Georgiev-Remmel. "So what is it that made this so different that you needed to call for an early license renewal?"
The administration argued that Disney's suit should have been filed in a federal appeals court and that the company should have appealed the FCC staff order to review its licenses before filing the lawsuit.
The FCC had not ordered an early review in more than 50 years before it did so in this instance.
The license reviews were ordered a day after Trump urged ABC to fire late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.
Broadcast stations need FCC licenses to use public airwaves. While license revocations are extremely rare, critics say threats of losing a license can pressure broadcasters and raise concerns about government interference in programming decisions.
The FCC is also investigating ABC daytime talk show "The View," which discusses politics, after saying it may be subject to federal rules requiring broadcasters to provide equal opportunities to political candidates. Disney noted that since February, the program has not invited any political candidates to appear, citing the FCC's "pressure campaign."
Last month, Kimmel said FCC threats prevented the airing of his interview with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico during a broadcast. The interview was instead posted on YouTube, where it has been viewed over 13 million times.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus and Will Dunham)
