Brendan Carr Orders Early Review of Eight ABC Stations — Bill O'reilly
bill o'reilly is back in the middle of a broadcast fight after Brendan Carr ordered an early license review for the eight broadcast TV stations owned by ABC and Disney on Tuesday. The move comes after 24 hours of criticism from Melania Trump and Donald Trump over Jimmy Kimmel's late-night bit last week.
Carr’s order lands at a rare point in FCC history. The agency’s nearly 100-year record has seen this kind of review only rarely, and the article says this is the first review of its kind in decades.
Kimmel’s Melania Remark
Kimmel described Melania Trump as an “expectant widow” in the bit, then said his comment was about the president’s “advanced years,” not a call for his assassination. Melania Trump said ABC should “take a stand” and fire Kimmel, and Donald Trump joined the criticism that followed.
That sequence matters because Carr did not start from a blank slate. In September, he threatened ABC’s licenses after Kimmel made comments in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder, and last month he warned broadcasters that coverage of the war against Iran could violate the FCC’s news distortion policy and lead to the loss of their licenses.
ABC, Disney and Carr
The review also reaches beyond one late-night segment. Carr has previously opened or continued investigations of ABC, CBS and NBC, and the FCC opened an investigation last year into ABC’s diversity and inclusion policies and into The View over an appearance by then-Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico.
For ABC and Disney, the immediate pressure is regulatory rather than promotional: eight stations are now under an early license review, and the agency has already shown a willingness to use license threats against broadcasters caught in political crossfire. No station has ever lost a license over violating the FCC’s news distortion policy, which is why this step lands as an unusually aggressive test of how far the commission wants to push.
FCC License Pressure
Broadcasters carry less First Amendment protection than the public at large because they must operate in the “public interest, convenience and necessity” to keep their licenses. Carr has been testing those norms since Trump appointed him FCC chair in early 2025, and this review gives ABC and Disney a concrete regulatory problem to manage, not just a political one.
