By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Federal Communications Commission said Wednesday it was opening a review of agreements between national networks and local broadcast station owners a day after
President Donald Trump suggested the commission should move to revoke the broadcast licenses of Disney-owned ABC stations.
FCC Chair Brendan Carr, a Republican, said the review will cover when stations can opt not to air programming on public interest grounds.
Trump's renewed call to revoke ABC's licenses came after expressing unhappiness with questions from an ABC reporter. The FCC, an independent federal agency, issues eight-year licenses to individual broadcast stations, not networks.
The White House on Wednesday issued a statement attacking ABC News asserting it was engaged in an effort "to wage war on President Trump and the millions of Americans who elected him" and issued a list of grievances over prior stories.
Disney did not immediately comment.
In September, Carr praised two major broadcast owners, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Nexstar Media Group, who briefly opted not to air of "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" on their 70 ABC-affiliated stations covering nearly a quarter of U.S. households. Nexstar needs FCC approval to acquire Tegna in a $3.54 billion deal and on Tuesday formally submitted an application to the agency.
ABC suspended Kimmel's show on September 17 over comments he made about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Hours before the suspension, Carr warned that local broadcasters who aired Kimmel could face fines or loss of licenses and said "it's time for them to step up."
Carr came under bipartisan criticism for those comments and will appear before the Senate Commerce Committee on December 17.
Contracts between the networks and affiliates have penalties for not airing programming for extended periods. The FCC notice asks "are national programmers able to take actions or threaten to punish local broadcast TV stations that attempt to exercise their lawful right to preempt national programming?"
The agency asked if it should adopt regulations to address "anticompetitive leverage and behavior by large networks?"
Carr said the FCC had initiated the review because national programmers are "reportedly preventing those broadcasters from serving their local communities - including by punishing them for exercising their right to preempt national programming."
Last December, ABC News agreed to give $15 million to the Trump presidential library to resolve a lawsuit over comments that anchor George Stephanopoulos made on air involving the civil case brought against Trump by writer E. Jean Carroll.
Carr has taken a series of steps to investigate media companies. In July, he opened a probe into NBC-parent Comcast’s relationships with its local broadcast TV affiliates.
The FCC in July approved the $8.4 billion merger between CBS parent Paramount Global and Skydance Media after Skydance agreed to ensure CBS news and entertainment programming is free of bias and end diversity programs. The approval came weeks after Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to settle Trump’s lawsuit against CBS over its editing of a "60 Minutes" interview with his Democratic presidential opponent, Kamala Harris.
(Reporting by David Shepardson and Ismail Shakil; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
