License laws
Broadcast license renewals are “all but automatic” due to 1996 change in US law.
President-elect Donald Trump speaks to Brendan Carr, his intended pick for Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, as he attends a SpaceX Starship rocket launch on November 19, 2024 in Brownsville, Texas. Credit: Getty Images | Brandon Bell
Disney will have the law on its side in its fight against the unusual broadcast license review ordered yesterday by the Federal Communications Commission, legal experts say.
In 1996, Congress made it a lot harder for the FCC to take away a broadcast license, even when it’s up for renewal. “Since the NAB [National Association of Broadcasters] got an amendment in the 1996 Telecommunications Act, denying renewal to a broadcaster faces an almost insurmountable burden,” Andrew Jay Schwartzman, senior counselor of the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, told Ars this week.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was a major update to the Communications Act, the 1934 law that established the FCC and provides the agency with its legal authority.
“Although the FCC generally acts under the ‘public interest’ standard when granting and regulating licenses, the Act imposes more limits on FCC actions that would cancel licenses or deny their renewal or transfer,” Northwestern University law professor James Speta wrote last year in the Yale Journal on Regulation. The Yale Journal article was written in response to previous threats to ABC issued by Trump and Carr.
The key change in 1996 was that “Congress eliminated the former process of comparative renewal hearings, under which broadcasters would have to show that their offerings are the best among any others seeking to take over the license,” Speta wrote. “The Act also generally requires that, before a license can be revoked, the FCC establish, on the basis of evidence, that the licensee has engaged in ‘willful or repeated’ violations of the Act, FCC rules, or its license.”
Early renewal is rarely used tactic
As previously reported, the FCC yesterday issued an order instructing ABC owner Disney to file early license renewal applications for all of its licensed TV stations by May 28. The FCC order came one day after President Trump and the first lady called on ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel over a recent joke saying that Melania Trump looked like an “expectant widow.” Kimmel made the joke during a skit in which he pretended to deliver a roast at the White House Correspondents’ dinner.
Schwartzman said it has been “many decades” since the FCC invoked the early renewal provision against a large broadcaster. The process itself doesn’t change a license’s actual expiration date, and ABC’s eight TV stations are scheduled for renewals between 2028 and 2031.
“This simply accelerates a process that takes years,” Schwartzman said. “The idea is that if you know there is a problem, start the proceeding now.”
The FCC order didn’t mention Kimmel but said the agency “has been investigating Disney’s ABC stations for possible violations of the Communications Act of 1934 and the FCC’s rules, including the agency’s prohibition on unlawful discrimination.” This seems to be a reference to Disney’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices, which FCC Chairman Brendan Carr claims are a form of discrimination.
Although the FCC probe is ostensibly over alleged violations of anti-discrimination rules, it’s widely seen as retaliation against ABC because of Trump and Carr’s many comments alleging that the network is biased. Carr threatened ABC station licenses in September 2025 over comments made by Kimmel, and Trump sued ABC in 2024 over statements made by George Stephanopoulos. Trump subsequently obtained a $15 million settlement.
“Even after paying off the president last year, ABC is once again under attack by this administration,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) wrote yesterday. “This should be a lesson to all who capitulate to the president: You cannot buy his favor, you can only rent it.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) criticized Carr’s 2025 attack on Kimmel and weighed in yesterday on the license proceeding. “It is not government’s job to censor speech, and I do not believe the FCC should operate as the speech police,” Cruz told Punchbowl News.
FCC can’t define “public interest” however it wants
The FCC indicated that the license renewal proceeding will cover more than just DEI, saying in yesterday’s order that an early license renewal “enables the FCC to ensure that the broadcaster has been meeting its public interest obligations more broadly.” Despite this expansive language, legal experts say the FCC has little room under the law to deny license renewals.
“Although the Communications Act says that the FCC shall issue licenses based on the ‘public interest,’ the Act has never been read to allow the government to define the public interest as anything the government says it is,” Speta wrote in his article last year. “The Supreme Court has confirmed that the Communications Act does not grant the FCC the power to ban controversial speech. Moreover, the Act’s broad considerations in granting licenses are cabined more strictly when it comes to license cancellations. And Congress specifically amended the Communications Act in 1996 to limit the government’s power to deny license renewals.”
Proving that ABC engaged in willful or repeated violations of the law is no easy task, and the process would take years assuming that ABC owner Disney is willing to fight. ABC would keep its licenses throughout that time.
“The broadcaster can continue to operate during the years-long process of agency review and court appeals,” Schwartzman said.
Denying license renewals was difficult even under the pre-1996 process, according to a 2006 article in the Federal Communications Law Journal by George Washington University’s Christopher Sterling.
“While few licenses were ever challenged in so-called comparative renewals, and fewer still denied, the issue remained hotly controversial and kept legions of attorneys busy at a high cost to broadcasters even if licenses were nearly always renewed… While process seemed at times to overtake substance in these proceedings, the FCC had little choice given the statutory requirements in the 1934 Communications Act,” Sterling wrote.
License renewals “all but automatic”
The comparative renewal process was eliminated by Congress “with a sweep of its legislative hand,” as Sterling noted. The 1996 update added a “standards for renewal” section with strict limits on when the FCC can deny a license transfer. Sterling wrote:
It requires that a license be renewed if the licensee fulfills three requirements: (A) the station has served the public interest, convenience or necessity; (B) the licensee has not been found guilty of “serious violations” of the Act or FCC rules; and (C) the licensee has committed “no other violations” of the Act or FCC rules, “which, taken together, would constitute a pattern of abuse.” These generalized standards—none of which speak directly to the quality of the program service provided—are very easy to meet for the vast majority of stations. Only if a licensee is found not to meet these standards, and then only if “no mitigating factors justify the imposition of lesser sanctions,” can the FCC deny a license. And only after such a denial may the FCC even begin to consider a different licensee. Put simply, the “comparative” aspect of renewals was eliminated. Renewals became all but automatic, making the eight-year term more a matter of minor administrative review than any real threat of a loss of license for outlets that broadcast for decades.
This section of the law “creates a strong presumption in favor of renewal,” Schwartzman said. “It is much harder to deny a broadcast renewal than any other kind of wireless license.” He noted that the section applies only to broadcast licenses, and not other kinds of licenses such as cellular or satellite.
The FCC bears the burden of proof “at every stage” of the legal process, the office of FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez said yesterday. Gomez is the commission’s only Democrat and has consistently criticized Carr’s attacks on media.
“Any action premised on a broadcaster’s content or editorial choices runs directly into the Communications Act’s prohibition on censoring broadcaster content and the First Amendment, barriers courts have consistently upheld,” Gomez’s office said. “The government cannot weaponize the licensing process to punish speech it disapproves of and attempts to do so have consistently failed.”
The FCC is likely to make its legal case based on alleged violations of anti-discrimination rules, rather than the content of ABC programming. But “even if the FCC grounds its case in a different legal theory, the broader pattern of political threats against broadcasters is part of the public record, and Disney can use that record in its defense,” Gomez’s office said. “Courts take motivation seriously, and the motivation here is clear.”
The biggest question may ultimately be whether Disney and ABC fight tooth and nail or make concessions to Carr. For now, the company says it will fight. In a statement yesterday, Disney said that ABC and its stations have a long record of complying with FCC rules and serving the public interest.
“We are confident that record demonstrates our continued qualifications as licensees under the Communications Act and the First Amendment and are prepared to show that through the appropriate legal channels,” Disney said.
Jon is a Senior IT Reporter for Ars Technica. He covers the telecom industry, Federal Communications Commission rulemakings, broadband consumer affairs, court cases, and government regulation of the tech industry.
