Legal experts say Disney will stand by the law in its fight against the unusual broadcast license review ordered by the Federal Communications Commission yesterday.
In 1996, Congress made it much harder to revoke a broadcast license even when the FCC was up for renewal. “After the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) amended the Telecommunications Act of 1996, a broadcaster faces an almost insurmountable burden to deny renewal,” Andrew Jay Schwartzman, senior counsel at the Benton Broadband and Society Institute, told Ars this week.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was a major update to the Communications Act of 1934, the law that created the FCC and provided the agency with legal authority.
“While the FCC generally operates under a “public interest” standard when issuing and regulating licenses, the Act places greater restrictions on FCC actions that revoke licenses or deny their renewal or transfer,” said Northwestern University law professor James Speta. wrote last year In Yale Journal of Regulation. The Yale Journal article was written in response to previous threats made to ABC by Trump and Carr.
The main change in 1996 was that “Congress eliminated the previous comparative renewal hearing process, under which broadcasters would have to show that their proposal was the best among others trying to take over the license,” Speta wrote. “The Act also generally requires that before a license can be revoked, the FCC must establish by evidence that the licensee has committed “willful or repeated” violations of the Act, FCC rules, or its license.”
An early update is a rarely used tactic
as previously reportedFCC yesterday ordered ABC owner Disney has until May 28 to submit early license renewal applications for all licensed television stations. The FCC order comes a day after President Trump and the first lady called for Jimmy Kimmel to be fired over his latest joke, saying Melania Trump looks like a “widow-to-be.” Kimmel made the joke during a skit in which White House correspondents pretended to serve a roast dinner.
