FCC Chairman Brendan Carr pushed back against accusations that the agency pressured Disney and ABC over Jimmy Kimmel’s absence from late-night television, while Democratic Commissioner Anna Gomez accused the Commission of enabling “government intimidation,” underscoring growing partisan tension over broadcast regulation.
At the Concordia Annual Summit, Carr said reports that the FCC threatened Disney’s broadcast licenses unless Kimmel was removed were “projection and distortion.” He described the decision as a business move by Disney following discussions with affiliates and the comedian himself. “For the first time in a long time, those local TV stations stood up and said, we don’t want to run that program,” Carr said. “And the reporting has shown that Disney itself reached out to Kimmel and had conversations with him and it was a product of those conversations where Disney on its own made the business decision not to have him air for some period of time.”
Carr argued that the uproar stemmed from a misunderstanding of the FCC’s authority. Broadcast television, he said, operates under a license and public interest standard, unlike cable or streaming platforms. The FCC can review “news distortion complaints” if formally filed, but otherwise disputes are resolved between local licensees and national programmers. “I haven’t seen this much interest in the work of the FCC since the great net neutrality repeal of 2017,” Carr said.
Gomez, however, issued a sharply worded statement after ABC announced that Kimmel’s suspension would end. “I am glad to see Disney find its courage in the face of clear government intimidation,” Gomez said. “More importantly, I want to thank those Americans from across the ideological spectrum who spoke loudly and courageously against this blatant attempt to silence free speech. It will continue to be up to us as citizens to push back against this Administration’s growing campaign of censorship and control.”
She added that the Carr-led Commission is weighing deregulatory steps that would allow large media companies to expand while, in her view, bowing to government pressure. Gomez said as Carr, “would let the same billion-dollar media conglomerates that caved in to government pressure grow even bigger, we must combat these efforts to stifle free expression,” Gomez said. “I will keep fighting to protect consumers, promote a healthy media ecosystem with viewpoint diversity, and ensure local broadcasters have the independence to stand up to government threats.”
Beyond the Kimmel dispute, Carr said shifting ratings and costs, not FCC action, are driving broader changes in late-night television. “They went from being court jesters that made fun of everybody…to court clerics, where they were enforcing a very narrow sort of partisan view,” Carr said. “That’s for the ratings in the audience to judge.”
