The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has published a notice to local television and radio broadcasters that reminds them of their public interest obligations, with a warning that the agency intends to take enforcement actions against broadcasters that fail to comply with that requirement.
The notice, published on the social media account of FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, came just a few hours after the Walt Disney Company’s ABC filed applications with the agency to renew the broadcast licenses of its eight local TV stations.
The applications came about a month after the FCC’s Media Bureau ordered ABC to renew its licenses early after determining the broadcaster continued to employ diversity, equity and inclusiveness (DEI) programs in its hiring and promotional practices. After threats from Carr last year, the network and Disney said its DEI programs complied with all laws.
On Thursday, ABC said its applications connected to its broadcast licenses were filed under duress. The company owns local TV stations in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Fresno, Raleigh-Durham and Houston.
The “public interest” standard has never been defined by lawmakers or the FCC itself, though broadcasters have long promoted their local newscasts and community-oriented programming as proof that they serve the local areas where their signals are transmitted. Until recently, the FCC has generally accepted that local news, coupled with community-oriented programming and events, satisfied the public interest requirement.
That changed last year when President Donald Trump was sworn into office. After Carr was appointed by Trump to lead the FCC, the agency has weaponized its authority by threatening and punishing broadcasters that stoke the ire of Trump and other Republicans.
Last month’s order that ABC renew its broadcast licenses was an unprecedented enforcement action. The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), the commercial broadcasting’s main lobbying arm that has worked to curry favor with Trump and members of his administration, issued a rare statement criticizing the FCC for calling home ABC’s broadcast licenses.
“Broadcast stations already face intense challenges as they work to deliver trusted journalism, lifesaving emergency services, community programming and election coverage,” Curtis LeGeyt, the CEO of the NAB, said in a statement. “The FCC must be careful to avoid actions that create further instability for the local stations viewers and listeners depend on.”
Anna Gomez, the lone Democratic commissioner at the FCC, previously said the agency should put a firm definition to the “public interest” standard in order to avoid anyone in power using that requirement to carry out attacks against broadcasters based on what is otherwise protected speech and activities.
“I have called for the commission to initiate a rulemaking to define what it means by the public interest,” Gomez said during a fireside talk last October. “Otherwise, we’re just regulating against what we don’t like, and that is a direct violation of the First Amendment.”
So far, Carr has ignored that request. Instead, he said broadcasters needed to fall in line or surrender their licenses to someone who will.
“The commission will not hesitate to exercise its statutory authority to ensure broadcasters either fulfill their public interest obligation or provide the privilege of being a broadcast licensee to someone that will fulfill that duty,” Carr said.
