The FCC licenses ABC’s TV stations across the country to broadcast their programming over publicly owned airwaves. And it’s extremely unusual for the FCC to do a group of early reviews, especially when all of them are owned by the same media company:

The Disney licenses in question, for eight ABC owned-and-operated stations in cities like NYC and Chicago, aren't due to be renewed for years. The early renewal order would trigger a lengthy hearing process, with many opportunities for stations to beat back the Trump administration's pressure. But stations have to be willing to defend themselves, which costs money and time.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr had signaled this review of Disney’s licenses might be on the way when he announced on March 28th that he had asked the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau to open an investigation into Disney & ABC:

In recent years, Disney made DEI a key priority for the company’s businesses and embedded explicit race- and gender-based criteria across its operations. Indeed, public reports—including ones based on whistleblower documents—paint a disturbing picture of Disney’s DEI practices.

In at least one account, a Disney employee described the company’s decision to launch what would amount to racially-segregated affinity groups and spaces. The company also publicly launched a “Reimagine Tomorrow” initiative, it would appear, as a mechanism for advancing its DEI mission. It also implemented mandatory “Inclusion Standards" across ABC, requiring, for example, that “50 percent of regular and recurring characters” be drawn from “underrepresented groups.” These standards may have forced racial and identity quotas into every level of production—demanding that “50% or more” of writers, directors, crew, and vendors be selected based on group identity. It appears that executive bonuses may also have been tied to DEI “performance,” and ABC has utilized race-based hiring databases and restricted fellowships to select demographic groups.

“If the evidence does in fact play out and shows that they were engaged in race- and gender-based discrimination, that’s a very serious issue at the FCC, that could fundamentally go to their character qualifications to even hold a license,” Carr told Fox in April.

When news broke Tuesday about the proposed early license examination, many observers suggested the move might be tied to comments made by the ABC late night host last Thursday:

On Thursday, Jimmy Kimmel gave his version of what he would say if he had been asked to perform at the upcoming White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday. That event has traditionally asked a comedian to perform, but this year opted to hire a magician.

Kimmel took aim at the entire Trump Family, including Melania Trump. The monologue included this line, which in retrospect was ill-timed”

"And of course, our first lady, Melania, is here. Look at—so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow."

That joke - and others from Kimmel aimed at the First Lady - prompted her to post a complaint on the social media platform X:

“Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country. His monologue about my family isn’t comedy— his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America.”

“People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate. A coward, Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him.”

Her husband, President Trump, later weighed in with his own complaints on Truth Social:

Wow, Jimmy Kimmel, who is in no way funny as attested to by his terrible Television Ratings, made a statement on his Show that is really shocking. He showed a fake video of the First Lady, Melania, and our son, Barron, like they were actually sitting in his studio, listening to him speak, which they weren’t, and never would be. He then stated, "Our First Lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow."

While the comments from Kimmel didn’t help the situation, this FCC move seems to have already been in the works before his monologue.

Update: The FCC announced the early review and I updated the story to shift from “the FCC is expected to do this,” to “The FCC announced it is doing this.” I also added a comment from Disney.