Conservative organizations have escalated their campaign against ABC by filing formal petitions with the FCC, urging regulators to reject license renewals for eight Disney-owned television stations over allegations of political bias and failure to serve the public interest.
The filings target stations in major markets and exploit the FCC’s early renewal process. Petitioners accuse ABC of systemic left-leaning bias in its news coverage, corporate practices that include explicit racial and gender discrimination, and overly accommodating relationships with the Chinese Communist Party.
In a statement accompanying the petitions, FCC watchdog and conservative activist Tim Passantino said: "The filings accused ABC of not operating 'in the public interest' in part because 'ABC engages in explicit racial and gender discrimination,' and 'cozies up to the Communist Chinese Party and airbrushes over religious and ethnic cleansing.'"
The petitions represent an aggressive push by right-wing groups to leverage existing FCC scrutiny of ABC into concrete license challenges. Under FCC rules, broadcast licenses must be renewed periodically, with stations required to demonstrate they operate in the public interest. Opponents argue ABC has fallen short through partisan reporting, ideological corporate policies, and editorial decisions that favor certain viewpoints.
The move comes amid heightened tensions between legacy media outlets and federal regulators. Conservative advocates are capitalizing on the FCC’s existing oversight of broadcast standards to demand stricter enforcement, framing ABC’s operations as a clear violation of its public trustee obligations.
Critics within the petitions highlight specific examples of alleged bias in ABC’s news programming, diversity initiatives they describe as discriminatory, and coverage of China that they claim downplays human rights abuses. By targeting multiple stations simultaneously, the groups aim to force the FCC to conduct a broader review of Disney’s broadcast holdings.
ABC and Disney have not yet issued a public response to the latest petitions. The network has previously defended its journalism as fair and accurate while dismissing political attacks as attempts to chill free speech and independent reporting.
Whether the FCC will entertain the petitions in full remains to be seen, but the action ensures the dispute over ABC’s license and editorial practices will remain a high-profile flashpoint in the national debate over media accountability.