Reuters
ederal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendan Carr. [Photo Credit: Reuters]
The lone Democrat on the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday called on major companies to stand up to threats from the Trump administration against broadcasters and others.
FCC chair Brendan Carr, a Republican, just prior had defended his recent comments pushing Disney (DIS.N), opens new tab and local broadcasters to stop airing “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, had said that Carr’s threats could one day hurt conservative media outlets if employed by a future Democratic administration. “We don’t want to see weaponization of government by any administration against any perspective — and that’s certainly not what we’re doing here,” Carr said.
On Friday, Sinclair Broadcast Group (SBGI.O), opens new tab and Nexstar Media Group (NXST.O), opens new tab ended their preemptions of the late-night show on their 70 ABC-affiliated stations covering nearly a quarter of U.S. households, days after ABC had resumed broadcasting Kimmel’s show.
Throughout both his terms, Trump has threatened to rescind licenses from local broadcast affiliates of the national networks and earlier this month suggested Carr could rescind licenses against broadcasters for mostly negative newscasts.
Carr defended his comments, saying the FCC was enforcing the public interest standard. He did not apologize for his “we can do this the easy way or the hard way” comment directed at broadcasters over the Kimmel show that came under heavy criticism.
He said that comment was misrepresented and praised local broadcasters for using their authority to preempt programming.
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