Why you can trust our reporting
We have covered the Federal Communications Commission for more than a decade; recently, we published stories detailing FCC Chairman Brendan Carr‘s targeting of the Walt Disney Company’s broadcast network ABC for its purported use of diversity programs and through its “equal time” rule stemming from an appearance by Texas Rep. James Talarico on “The View.”
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) encouraged several ABC affiliates to make late political disclosure filings in February after a Texas state representative made an appearance on “The View,” only to then accuse an ABC-owned station of failing to do the same two months later, the lone Democratic commissioner at the agency said on Monday.
In a letter sent to the Walt Disney Company’s CEO Josh D’Amaro, FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez said the agency sent informal letters to nearly two dozen independently-owned ABC affiliates encouraging them to disclose Texas Representative James Talarico’s February 2 interview on The View in their public inspection files, but never gave the same consideration to the one ABC-owned TV station in Houston.
Nineteen ABC affiliates owned by Nexstar Media Group, Sinclair, Gray Media, News Press & Gazette and other broadcasters did update their public inspection files accordingly, Gomez said, pointing specifically to two Sinclair-owned stations — KVII (Channel 7) in Amarillo and KTXS (Channel 12) in Abilene — whose inspection files were updated in mid-Februray to disclose the appearance.
At the time of his appearance, Talarico was running for a seat in the United States Senate, having served as a state representative since 2018. His appearance on The View has been contested by the FCC as triggering the agency’s “equal time” rules, which require broadcasters to set aside equitable time to candidates upon request when a competing candidate appears on a licensed TV station.
While the 19 ABC affiliates were given a heads up about the matter, Gomez said KTRK (Channel 13), the ABC-owned station in Houston, was not. Then, in mid March, the FCC’s Media Bureau sent a letter of inquiry to Disney, noting that two dozen ABC affiliates had disclosed Talarico’s appearance in their public inspection files and questioning why KTRK had not.
Gomez characterized the matter as “entrapment,” saying the FCC “selectively pressured ABC affiliates in Texas to file late equal opportunity notices while offering them amnesty for doing so, then using the resulting inconsistency — that the Commission helped create — as evidence against (KTRK), which received no such offer.”
The FCC’s Media Bureau ultimately demanded ABC and Disney file a petition for declaratory relief — something that the entertainment company said was unprecedented — explaining why KTRK should be exempt from disclosing Talarico’s appearance in its public inspection files. The agency also encouraged ABC and Disney to provide evidence in support of maintaining a long-standing exemption to its “equal time” rules by explaining why it felt The View should be considered a news program.
The matter involving The View is separate from an FCC probe into Disney’s use of diversity, equity and inclusiveness (DEI) programs at ABC and other regulated business units, which was the impetus for an order last month that demands ABC renew the broadcast licenses of KTRK and its other seven ABC-owned local TV stations. The FCC has given Disney until the end of the month to do so.
That order drew a rare rebuke from the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), the industry’s main lobbying arm, which has otherwise tried to curry favor with the FCC and its chairman, Brendan Carr, on matters related to media consolidation.
In a statement last month, NAB CEO Curtis LeGeyt said the FCC’s broadcast license application process should be rooted in “predictability, fairness and transparency” as Congress intended when lawmakers gave the agency authority to regulate broadcast radio and television stations.
“Broadcast stations already face intense challenges as they work to deliver trusted journalism, lifesaving emergency services, community programming and election coverage,” LeGeyt said. “The FCC must be careful to avoid actions that create further instability for the local stations viewers and listeners depend on.”
