Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr is one of at least three agency officials who have agreed to testify before the Senate Commerce Committee about last month’s hiatus involving ABC’s late night talk show “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
The hiatus was influenced by Carr’s remarks during an interview with a conservative podcaster in mid-September, during which he encouraged ABC affiliates to pre-empt the program and threatened ABC with tougher regulatory scrutiny if it didn’t address a monologue he found to be problematic.
Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair, Inc., two large owners of ABC affiliated stations, announced their intention to pull Kimmel’s program from their stations hours after Carr’s remarks. Both broadcasters have pending business deals that require FCC approval, but executives at the companies claim their decisions over Kimmel were separate from those deals.
Disney pulled Kimmel’s show for about a week before returning it to most ABC stations and affiliates on September 23. Sinclair and Nexstar returned the show to their stations a few days later.
Carr denies influencing anyone at Nexstar, Sinclair or Disney, saying local broadcasters made the decision, on their own, to pull the program based on their obligations to serve the public interest.
At a press conference last month, Carr suggested the agency open a public interest hearing on the public interest standard, but said his comments were in line with precedent set by other FCC officials in prior administrations.
Some lawmakers aren’t so sure about that: In a letter sent to the CEOs of Nexstar and Sinclair last week, four U.S. Senators suggested Carr’s remarks were intended to curry favor with President Donald Trump, who has been critical of Kimmel and other late night talk show hosts in the past, and to generate goodwill with an agency that will approve or deny their business transactions.”
“This series of events raises serious questions about whether Nexstar and Sinclair responded to Trump officials’ warnings by removing Mr. Kimmel’s show, not only to avoid regulatory backlash from the FCC, but also to influence the Trump administration’s review of your pending deals,” the senators wrote.
They continued: “If you suspended a late-night comedian’s show in part to seek regulatory favors from the administration, you have not only assisted the administration in eroding First Amendment freedoms, but also create the appearance of a possible quid pro quo arrangement that could implicate federal anti-corruption laws.”
Carr will soon have to answer, for himself, whether those deals were in the back of his mind when he urged broadcasters to pull Kimmel’s show, though a date for the Senate hearing has not been set.
Carr’s fellow commissioners, Democrat Anna Gomez and Republican Olivia Trusty, will also appear at the hearing, according to a source.
Much of the FCC is currently closed, part of the broader government shutdown due to a lapse in Congressional funding and failure by lawmakers to pass a new appropriations bill. Carr, Gomez and Trusty continue to report to work, as do members of their staff.
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Read more:
- Free speech groups urge FCC Chairman Carr to resign
- Watchdog files bar complaint against FCC Chairman Carr over Kimmel controversy
- ABC pulls “Jimmy Kimmel Live” amid threats from FCC chairman
- Law firm files FCC complaint against TV station over Kimmel monologue
- Trump urges FCC to pull TV station licenses over negative coverage
- Broadcasters who criticized Jimmy Kimmel have deals pending before FCC
