WASHINGTON — Television stations owned by ABC nationwide are fighting back against federal communications regulators, condemning what they describe as an improper and unconstitutional early examination of their broadcasting permits as tensions escalate between the network and the Trump administration’s agency.
“It is an extraordinary demonstration of power and coercion directed at disfavored editorial voices which sends a clear warning to every broadcaster in America,” WABC in New York wrote in an objection that accompanied paperwork filed to comply with the FCC’s demand for early applications to renew licenses.
Television stations owned by ABC in seven additional markets submitted comparable protests. Federal communications officials did not immediately provide a response when asked for comment.
The protest represents part of an escalating clash between the FCC and one of the nation’s leading broadcast networks. Led by Chairman Brendan Carr, the regulatory body has initiated investigations into ABC covering topics ranging from the company’s diversity policies to how the network handled a 2024 presidential debate to programming choices on “The View.” President Donald Trump has also consistently demanded that late-night host Jimmy Kimmel be terminated.
However, the FCC’s decision in April to start premature evaluations of broadcasting permits for ABC-owned stations in eight local markets drew especially significant scrutiny. The permits for stations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, New York, Chicago and Philadelphia as well as Fresno, California, and Durham, North Carolina, were originally scheduled for renewal between 2028 and 2031.
Commissioner Anna Gomez, the FCC’s sole Democrat, has called the reviews an “egregious assault on the First Amendment.” On Thursday, she said she was glad to see the stations “expose the FCC’s actions as nothing more than naked political retribution and an unlawful assault on free speech and a free press.”
In its objection, WABC said the “ultimate injury here is not to the station or its parent company.”
“It is to the public,” the station said. “When a broadcaster must weigh regulatory retaliation before making editorial decisions, the public loses access to journalism that is free from government influence.”
This represents a dramatic change in ABC’s strategy toward political pressure from Washington. During the weeks before Trump’s return to office, the network agreed to a disputed $15 million defamation settlement, a decision that failed to reduce criticism from Trump and his supporters in subsequent years.
The network presented a stronger defense of free speech principles in documentation filed last month addressing an FCC examination of whether “The View” fell under equal time regulations. The agency contended that the law promoted additional speech, but ABC cautioned that open political dialogue was being suppressed by the Trump administration.
“The Commission’s actions threaten to upend decades of settled law and practice and chill critical protected speech, both with respect to The View and more broadly,” according to a filing on behalf of both KTRK-TV and ABC.
