Conserative Advocacy Groups Fear Backlash

Conservative advocacy groups are defending Disney-owned ABC against the FCC, urging Chairman Brendan Carr to keep broadcast license renewals routine and avoid setting precedents that could later harm non-liberal broadcasters.

A coalition including the Center for Individual Freedom, Citizens Against Government Waste and Americans for Tax Reform sent a letter to Carr on Wednesday calling on the FCC to preserve the “well-established, routine, predictable, and presumptive nature” of license renewals. The groups warn that turning renewals into a discretionary political checkpoint would create a “powerful lever” future commissions—especially those hostile to conservative or religious broadcasters—could use against them.“

The surest protection against that future is to keep the renewal process predictable today,” the letter states. It notes that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 made renewals “effectively presumptive” so stations could serve their communities without constant fear of losing their licenses. Non-routine reviews, the groups argue, have historically been reserved for extraordinary failures or malfeasance, not content or policy disagreements.

Fox News Digital reports the letter comes as Carr has required eight ABC-owned stations to demonstrate they operate in the public interest amid scrutiny of Disney’s DEI practices. He has also criticized ABC for skipping President Donald Trump’s recent primetime address, saying the decision was not in the public interest. 

The stations—KFSN-TV (Fresno), KABC-TV (Los Angeles), KGO-TV (San Francisco), WLS-TV (Chicago), WABC-TV (New York), WTVD (Durham, N.C.), WPVI-TV (Philadelphia) and KTRK-TV (Houston)—had licenses originally set for renewal between 2028 and 2031; the current FCC accelerated the process.

The conservative organizations say granting the stations routine renewals would deny future commissions tools and precedents that could be turned against conservative media.