Conservative fight against license renewals for ABC stations heats up

Prominent organizations accuse network of political, racial and sexual bias and supporting Chinese communist party

A group of prominent conservative organizations has petitioned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to deny license renewal requests from the eight local television stations owned and operated by ABC , accusing the network of political, racial and sexual bias and supporting the Chinese communist party.

The petitions come after the commission, led by Trump appointee Brendan Carr , took the nearly unprecedented step of requiring the network, a frequent recipient of attacks from Donald Trump, to apply several years early to maintain its ability to broadcast in markets around the country.

While Carr has said the early license renewal process stems from an FCC investigation into ABC’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts, petitioners are free to include a variety of grievances against the network and concerns about whether ABC is operating in the public interest.

The petitions – part of an open process that allows anyone to argue that ABC is not fit to hold publicly owned television licenses – came from groups like the Center for American Rights, which has played a significant role during Carr’s tenure atop the FCC agency as an initiator of complaints against major broadcast television networks.

In a petition to deny filed last Monday, the group said the stations were not being operated “in the public interest” in part because ABC’s programs “show a consistent and overt partisan bias”, citing the group’s past complaints about late-night host Jimmy Kimmel and the network’s moderation of a 2024 presidential debate, among other concerns.

“ABC ignores long-standing Commission precedents and principles protecting the integrity of the news,” the group wrote. “ABC engages in explicit racial and gender discrimination. ABC cozies up to the Communist Chinese Party and airbrushes over religious and ethnic cleansing. ABC fails to respect this Commission’s rules.”

The organization lobbied the FCC to deny ABC’s renewal requests and to call the matter for a hearing, “because the Petition and accompanying materials raise sufficient questions [about] whether ABC is operating in the public interest or remains worthy of the public trust”.

The Media Research Center, a non-profit conservative media watchdog group, filed a petition to deny the network’s license renewal requests “because of ABC’s continued and sustained abuse of the licenses subject to the current review, its notorious efforts to improperly influence national elections, and its willful engagement in misinformation and the promotion of violence”.

The group claimed that ABC-owned and -operated television stations, in markets such as New York City and Los Angeles, “have used public spectrum to suppress news coverage of the most critical stories of our day; to engage in electioneering and relentless political bias; to excuse, minimize, and even justify the epidemic of political violence; and to peddle misinformation and defamation”.

The Article III Project, a legal group started by the conservative, Trump-aligned activist Mike Davis, focused its petition to deny on ABC parent company Disney’s employment practices and efforts to hire a more diverse workforce.

“The Commission should deny renewal of ABC’s television licenses,” wrote William Chamberlain, senior counsel for the organization. “The record demonstrates consistent and serious violations of federal [Equal Employment Opportunity] law. In the alternative, any renewal must include sweeping terms and conditions sufficient to eliminate all discriminatory practices and ensure future compliance.”

Another petition was filed by the Trump-affiliated conservative advocacy organization America First Legal, which was co-founded by the longtime Trump aide Stephen Miller. The group claimed that ABC’s stations “demonstrated a lack of the character qualifications necessary to hold broadcast licenses”.

The FCC accelerated the timeline for ABC’s license renewals in April after the White House called for Kimmel to be ousted over a joke he made about Melania Trump .

The FCC is also investigating whether the daytime talkshow The View violated equal time provisions around political candidates appearing on programs after an appearance by the Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico, who is polling strongly against the Republican hopeful Ken Paxton.

The agency has set a 29 July deadline for opposition to petitions to deny. After a final 5 August deadline for replies, the matter would probably be handed off to an administrative law judge to hold what is essentially a full trial over the license process, which would involve discovery and depositions and witnesses – or the FCC’s commissioners could choose to hold hearings themselves.

During a 25 June FCC meeting, Carr told the Guardian that there was no clear timeline for the license renewal review – and appeal – process.

“If it’s short, great. If it’s long, great,” he said. “But we got to apply the Communications Act and the provisions.”