FCC chairman Brendan Carr has accused Disney of running a \”campaign of misinformation\” as the company’s ABC network pushes back against two investigations before the media regulator.
The dispute centers on ABC’s public effort to rally viewer support while the FCC examines both a complaint involving The View and a separate license renewal process for eight ABC-owned local television stations. ABC’s ads have encouraged viewers to submit public comments, and the FCC’s public comment files have been described as drawing tens of thousands of submissions in the related proceedings.
Carr said Disney is using what he characterized as a standard public relations strategy and trying to argue the matter through the media. He took particular issue with ABC’s message that the FCC wants to control who can appear on The View, saying the commission is instead applying provisions of the Communications Act.
\”We’re going to apply the law,\” Carr said, adding that no final decision has been made.
The Fight Over The View and ABC’s Licenses
One FCC inquiry concerns whether The View violated equal time rules around political candidates appearing on programming. FCC equal time rules The other involves whether ABC should be able to renew licenses for the eight local stations it owns.
The license issue is the higher-stakes fight for ABC because broadcast licenses are central to how local television stations operate. The process could be brief or could stretch far longer if the FCC determines it cannot make a renewal finding and sends the matter to a hearing.
Carr said the agency would review the facts and legal arguments in the record, including public comments, but he did not commit to a timeline. He said all options remain on the table and that the outcome would be dictated by the Communications Act and the facts before the commission.
That leaves ABC and Disney facing a regulatory fight with an unusually public political edge. The FCC routinely handles license renewals and broadcast complaints, but this dispute has broken into a broader argument over whether the regulator is neutrally enforcing communications law or pressuring a major media company over its coverage and commentary.
Gomez Says the Process Is Pressure on Disney
Anna M. Gomez, the FCC’s lone Democratic-appointed commissioner, has sharply criticized Carr’s approach. Gomez said she believes the investigations and early license renewal scrutiny are being used to pressure Disney and ABC over coverage of the Trump administration.
\”It is so clear that this early license renewal is being done to pressure Disney,\” Gomez said. \”This is all designed to pressure Disney to cave.\”
Gomez also questioned whether public comments backing ABC would meaningfully shape the commission’s decision. She said she expects the FCC to lean on submissions from partisan organizations to support what she described as an effort to silence critics.
Carr has framed the matter differently, saying the FCC is enforcing existing law and has not reached a decision. His criticism of Disney’s campaign, though, shows how quickly a technical regulatory process can become a public messaging battle when it involves one of the country’s largest media companies and one of television’s most politically visible daytime shows.
For now, the immediate question is not only how the FCC resolves the ABC proceedings, but how much weight it gives to the surge of public attention around them. The answer could shape both the future of ABC’s local station licenses and the broader relationship between federal regulators and politically contentious broadcast programming.