The National Association of Broadcasters says the FCC should not submit ABC’s television stations to an early license renewal process.
It said the action has negative ramifications for the entire broadcast industry. In fact it believes the commission should do away with its “early call-in rule” entirely.
In a 27-page filing, the association has laid out a legal framework for its position. It is a notable document given broader uncertainties right now in the industry about license renewals.
The debate was prompted when the Media Bureau in April instructed Walt Disney and its ABC arm to file early license renewals for its eight TV stations.
The FCC said it has been investigating whether ABC “engaged in prohibited practices” by making workplace decisions based on race, gender or other protected characteristics.
It said early review “also provides the FCC the opportunity to determine whether the ABC stations have been operating in the public interest.” And it invited comments and petitions to deny.
The FCC has received more than 150,000 comments.
Now, in its filing, the NAB responds specifically to critical statements from organizations like the America First Legal Foundation, Article III Project, the Center for American Rights and Media Research Center.
The Media Research Center, for instance, told the FCC that “ABC is a partisan operation engaged in active electioneering, including interference in a presidential debate.” It said ABC “refuses to report on many of the most critical issues of our day,” that it uses public spectrum to “excuse and even justify political violence” and that it spreads misinformation.
The Center for American Rights told the FCC that ABC stations operate with partisan bias, that they are “on an ideological mission to advance a race and culture agenda contrary to the public interest” and accused Disney of a “cozy relationship” with the Chinese Communist Party.
If the FCC does deny ABC licenses, the NAB’s response to such filings offers a preview of the legal fight that would surely follow.
The association wrote: “These factually and legally infirm filings raise issues and make arguments that impact all broadcast licensees, especially in light of the very public nature of this proceeding. And with radio station licenses scheduled for renewal starting in 2027 and television licenses beginning their cycle the following year, this issue is front and center for the entire industry.”
NAB told the commission: “Every broadcast tower constructed, every studio built, every journalist hired, every local event covered and every news story broadcast depends upon the stability, integrity and predictability of the licensing framework.”
Unsettling these expectations, it said, “carries profound implications for broadcasters across the country and for the communities that depend upon them.” It said the FCC should treat any request to disrupt license renewal with “exceptional care and gravity.”
The association argued that renewal “is not designed to be an open-ended vehicle for reviewing every aspect of a licensee’s or its corporate affiliates’ businesses, resolving claims committed to other agencies and courts, or second-guessing constitutionally protected editorial decisions.”
It said ABC’s critics want the FCC to evaluate whether and how the stations covered news and public affairs. It said this is “precisely the type of editorial judgment protected by the First Amendment and Section 326’s prohibition against censorship,” referring to a section of the Communications Act.
It also said some of the allegations against ABC fall outside the renewal process altogether, such as evaluating the performance of a station owner’s “theme parks, film and television studios, streaming platforms or other non-station operations.”
Allowing these considerations “would transform a focused review of station performance into a wide-ranging investigation of an entire corporate enterprise, outside the FCC’s jurisdiction. This is exactly what the commission wanted to avoid when denying challenges to FOX 29 Philadelphia, WTXF-TV’s renewal application just two years ago.”
It said the FCC rarely has invoked its authority to compel early renewal filings “and had not done so in more than 50 years before this year.”
According to the NAB, uncertainty created by early reviews “will inevitably discourage investment in the broadcast industry … Even a limited number of early license call-ins will appear to investors and lenders as undermining the stability of those broadcast industry assets necessary for all stations to remain functioning businesses.”
In response to charges of political bias, NAB wrote that the FCC “has repeatedly rejected challenges to license renewal applications based on programming content and should continue to do so here, given both statutory authority and First Amendment concerns.”
It also said licensing statutes from Congress “do not support the FCC’s authority to regulate broadcasters’ programming as the renewal opponents want. … The commission has very limited authority to interfere with the selection and presentation of public issues” by broadcasters.
And NAB said some of the organizations “rely on a number of fairness doctrine-era FCC decisions as authority for the position that stations must present multiple viewpoints. These decisions do not reflect current law.”
