Breaking: In what would be an extraordinary move by the federal government, the FCC is preparing to order an early review of Disney's eight ABC station licenses. Details down below...
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"This was like déjà vu for me today," Jimmy Kimmel said in his Monday night monologue, describing the Trump administration's latest pressure campaign to get him fired by ABC.
Last time, it was FCC chair Brendan Carr who threatened ABC, wielding the heavy hand of government in a way that most Americans disagreed with.
This time, it was President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, creating an even more dramatic confrontation between the government and ABC, and thus Disney, one of the biggest media companies in the world.
But something is different this time around. The power dynamics seem to have shifted. Crucially, the local TV station ownership groups that condemned Kimmel's liberal commentary last September have stayed silent this week.
Kimmel's show went ahead as scheduled last night. None of the ABC affiliates preempted it. This morning, the Trump White House stepped up the pressure even more, with WH comms director Steven Cheung calling Kimmel a "shit human being" and saying "ABC needs to fire him immediately."
But that's simply not going to happen. My sense from sources in and around Disney is that the company is ready for this fight.
And make no mistake: It's going to be a long fight. The FCC is preparing to take action that will be widely seen as retaliatory.
So, this is new Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro's first big Trump test, but it's coming at a time when Trump's political leverage has weakened.
Last fall, Trump entered the first Kimmel fight with political inertia. This spring, as his approval rating sinks and the midterms approach, some institutions have been showing more willingness to push back.
And many Americans are paying attention. Kimmel's monologue from last night has already surpassed 2.5 million views on YouTube.
Let's get into all the angles here...
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Why this time is different |
I know you remember what happened last September: When conservatives denounced Kimmel's remark about the alleged Charlie Kirk killer, and Carr threatened ABC affiliates, two politically conservative station groups, Nexstar and Sinclair, said they'd preempt the show.
Their actions led many to conclude that the station owners were making a political calculation — trying to curry favor with the Trump administration while seeking FCC approval for deals — though the companies denied that.
ABC, facing a local station rebellion and wanting to lower the political temperature, decided to suspend Kimmel's show "indefinitely." And the backlash to that decision was severe.
Ultimately, Disney ticked off both Trump opponents by benching Kimmel and then Trump fans by allowing him back on the air less than a week later. Let's just say this was seen inside Disney as a suboptimal handling of the situation.
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Free speech and presidential criticism ultimately prevailed in "Kimmelgate." And the episode reaffirmed that the national network has more power than the affiliates. Sinclair, for instance, told ABC it should hire a "network-wide independent ombudsman." ABC, to my knowledge, has not done so.
But ABC has privately emphasized that it will enforce its station affiliation agreements, according to a source close to the company. If station owners preempt Kimmel's show, they could be in breach of those agreements.
Maybe that's why Nexstar and Sinclair's ABC affiliates still aired the show last night. The Trump-friendly execs who run the companies may privately detest Kimmel, but they're having to consider many factors, including legal contracts.
Plus — and this is a crucial detail — last September, Nexstar was awaiting Trump admin approval of its Tegna takeover bid and a waiver of a broadcaster ownership rule. Last month, Nexstar won those approvals.
Now the political tables have turned, and Democratic state attorneys general are in court trying to stop the deal. As CNN media analyst and Axios media correspondent Sara Fischer pointed out to me this morning, Nexstar preempting Kimmel today could factor into the antitrust lawsuit as an example of a company blocking consumer access to programming. Not a good look in front of a judge.
Nexstar declined my request for comment this morning. Sinclair has not responded.
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So what's going on inside Disney right now? I'm still working on reporting out that part of the story. ABC hasn't said a word about Kimmel – which means it has not issued any full-throated defense of him – but actions speak louder than words, and airing the show last night was the strongest defense of all.
My sources at ABC and Disney are well aware that the MAGA media attacks against Kimmel are not in good faith. Cheung tweeted this morning that Kimmel made a "disgusting joke about assassinating the President." Kimmel did no such thing. His "expectant widow" bit about the first lady was, as he said last night, "about the fact that [Trump is] almost 80 and she's younger than I am."
Of course, after a gunman ran toward the Hilton ballroom last Saturday, Trump and his allies have recontextualized the joke as a call to violence. But it wasn't.
My sources at the company are also well aware of the hypocrisy at play here. As CNN's Aaron Blake put it, "a month ago, Trump unabashedly celebrated the death of a perceived political foe. Today, his White House is calling Democrats a 'cult of hatred.'"
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The White House was careful at first... |
Yesterday, Karoline Leavitt repeated Trump's statement that we must "resolve our differences peacefully." True. But the way to do that is through speech, including the speech the administration wants to silence. There is a clear effort to use Saturday's shooting to stifle dissent – and lots of powerful pushback.
With regard to Kimmel, I found it noteworthy that the initial statements from the Trump White House yesterday were carefully worded not to explicitly tell ABC what to do. First Lady Melania Trump urged ABC to "take a stand," but didn't say how. Publicly rebuke Kimmel? Make him say sorry? Suspend him? I think the first lady's team knowingly left it vague because a more specific demand would be decried as government censorship.
I mentioned that on CNN yesterday afternoon, and then anchor Boris Sanchez broke the news to me that Trump had just posted on Truth Social, explicitly saying ABC should fire Kimmel. That's what led to the funny/cringey clip of me that Kimmel showed in his monologue 😉
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Are ABC licenses at risk? |
As Kimmel pointed out last night, "Trump is allowed to say whatever he wants to say, as are you and as am I and as are all of us, because under the First Amendment we have as Americans the right to free speech."
But when the government tries to use its power to enforce Trump's POV, to shut down criticism, that's when the First Amendment alarms start to ring. And they're ringing right now.
The FCC is preparing to "call in all of the TV station licenses for Disney/ABC for early renewal," a source familiar with the matter told me just now, confirming this report by Semafor's Liz Hoffman and Rohan Goswami. The source said it will happen as early as this afternoon.
The FCC hadn't done this in decades... although, strangely enough, the agency just filed an early-renewal order yesterday against a small station license holder called Bridge News.
The aforementioned Brendan Carr signaled last month that he might take this step when he tweeted to me that "the Communications Act authorizes the FCC to call in licenses for early renewal."
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.
Carr must know that if he sends Disney these early-renewal papers, it will be viewed as retaliation for airing Kimmel's show and resisting Trump's pressure. But my source familiar with the matter said the FCC will assert that the license review stems from an ongoing FCC probe into Disney's DEI practices.
I'll be refreshing the FCC website today to see if the orders actually come through. Keep in mind: It's just the start of a protracted legal process, and ABC's licenses are likely not in any real jeopardy. But it calls to mind the title of Malcolm Feeley's 1979 book about the legal system: "The Process Is the Punishment."
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The FCC's lone Democrat, Anna Gomez, is surely preparing to weigh in against this early renewal gambit right now.
Yesterday, she said, "As we have seen after previous acts of political violence, we cannot allow this tragedy to become a pretext for silencing speech, even speech we find objectionable. An event meant to honor the freedom of the press must never become a justification for undermining it."
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In DC over the weekend, I was talking with a Trump administration official about the ways the government has been "weaponized" (my word) to "straighten out" (their word) the mainstream media. This official argued that there's a double standard at work here.
Democrats, they argued, are "bare-knuckle" about applying pressure to media companies. The example they cited was Sen. Chris Murphy's tweet criticizing Paramount CEO David Ellison for holding a private dinner with Trump last Thursday.
"Ellison and the information oligarchs should enjoy it while they can," Murphy wrote, "because when Democrats win power we are going to break these anti-consumer, anti-free speech media conglomerates into pieces." The admin official's point was essentially that the other side does it too, and they're worse.
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"Political leader trying to silence a comedian" is usually a story you hear about autocracies. Today, it's a story about America.
But America has passed most of the free speech stress tests during Trump 2.0. So far, there is every indication that it will pass this test, too.
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Uneaten WHCD meals donated to shelters |
Because of the shooting, the actual dinner part of the dinner never left the kitchen on Saturday night. But something meaningful came of it:
"The Hilton donated the ~2600 dinners that went unserved at WHCD," Weijia Jiang posted to X yesterday. "They freeze dried the steak and lobster for longer shelf life before giving them to 2 shelters for abused women and children. HUGE thank you to the staff that worked through the night under terrible circumstances."
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More fallout from the shooting |
>> The shooting suspect, Cole Tomas Allen, faces three charges, including attempting to assassinate the president. Jeanine Pirro says he'll face additional charges soon. (CNN)
>> A KFILE review of Allen's social media posts shows a "shift from video games to political rage." (CNN)
>> Kari Lake told Newsmax that she confronted CNN's Jake Tapper while they were evacuating the ballroom, blaming the media for the shooting. "How dare you?" she said she told him. "You have caused so much division in this country pushing lies." (Newsmax)
>> "This crusade against Kimmel was predictable," Tapper said, "because the Trump administration's attempt to use Saturday's shooting as justification to stop all critical coverage, whether journalistic or comedic, of Donald Trump, that started even before the ballroom emptied." He then described Lake's "unhinged rant." (CNN)
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Appeals court allows Pentagon press escorts |
Yesterday, a federal appeals court "ruled the Pentagon can require escorts for journalists inside the building while litigation over the Defense Department's restrictive press policy continues," CNN's Piper Hudspeth Blackburn reports.
The ruling is the latest turn in the NYT's First Amendment lawsuit against the Pete Hegseth-led Pentagon's restrictive press policies. Weeks ago, a federal judge blocked the Pentagon's newer policy that shut down the longstanding Correspondents' Corridor — a move that followed the Times winning an injunction against Hegseth's earlier attempts to restrict press access.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell welcomed yesterday's ruling, writing on X that "The Department looks forward to presenting its full case to the D.C. Circuit on the merits." And the Times said it "will continue to seek resolution in this case and argue for the right of journalists to freely cover the American military, so the public can understand the actions it is undertaking in their name and with their tax dollars."
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Paramount seeks OK for Gulf $$$
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Paramount has asked the FCC "to sign off on its equity investment from three prominent Middle East sovereign wealth funds that are backing the company’s $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery," THR's Alex Weprin reports.
The company's filing states that Saudi Arabia will own a 15.1% equity stake; the UAE will own 12.8%; and Qatar will own 10.6%. That adds up to 38.5% of the equity in Paramount-WBD. Other foreign money from existing investors in Paramount and RedBird brings the overall total to 49.5%.
"Together, the three Persian Gulf states are putting $24 billion into the new company," Deadline's Dade Hayes writes. "Paramount has noted repeatedly that the non-U.S. stakeholders have no voting control and are passive backers, making the scenario less dire than the one portrayed by critics. The fact that both CBS News and CNN will be under the new corporate roof, however, makes the involvement of Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf interests a sensitive point."
Speaking of CBS News...
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CBS London chief out after clash over coverage
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CBS "has ousted London bureau chief Claire Day after she clashed with editor-in-chief Bari Weiss over the network's coverage of Iran and Gaza," Alexandra Steigrad reported for the NY Post yesterday.
Oliver Darcy added lots more detail in Status last night. Shayndi Raice, a longtime reporter and editor at The Wall Street Journal, is expected to be named foreign editor at CBS, a new role, in the coming days...
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CNN 'meeting and beating' targets
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"A year and a half after it launched its paywall, CNN says it's 'meeting and beating' the targets it set itself for subscriber acquisition," Bron Maher of A Media Operator writes.
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Amanda Rottier, CNN's SVP and head of growth, told AMO the team was 'very pleased with the results so far.' She wouldn’t share specific figures, but said 'I promise that we’re not sitting around setting low-ball targets so we can say that we're beating targets.' The targets, she said, were ones CNN needed to hit to reach its financial goals, and 'we are meeting and beating our targets right now.'"
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>> "The Ankler is moving off Substack and on to a new, independent platform — with our own owned-and-operated site and subscription infrastructure," the outlet announced on Thursday. (The Ankler)
>> Barry Diller is rebranding IAC as People Incorporated to refocus the company on People and its stake in MGM Resorts. Neil Vogul will become CEO, and Diller will become executive chairman. (THR)
>> "CEO pay packages across the S&P 500 rose nearly 11% in 2025 compared with 2024 — and media and entertainment led all sectors with an eye-opening 117% surge," Dade Hayes reports. (Deadline)
>> Variety has named Marlow Stern chief correspondent covering the film industry. (Variety)
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Elon Musk to take the stand in lawsuit against Altman
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"Elon Musk spent part of Monday posting on his social media platform X about his lawsuit against OpenAI, its CEO Sam Altman and president Greg Brockman, and Musk's claims in the suit that the ChatGPT maker deceived him and betrayed its original mission," CNN's Samantha Delouya and Hadas Gold report. "As soon as Tuesday, Musk could take the stand" to convince the nine jurors chosen yesterday that "OpenAI betrayed him and its original nonprofit mission when it created a for-profit subsidiary."
>> "Some of the jurors that were ultimately selected voiced concerns over Musk himself, as well as the AI technology at the core of the case, but assured the court they would put these concerns aside for the trial," Maxwell Zeff and Paresh Dave report. (WIRED)
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Taylor Swift moves to trademark her voice |
This is one of the most interesting stories in the news today: Taylor Swift’s company on Friday "filed three trademark applications with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office," two of which "relate to sound trademarks covering her voice," the third of which "is a visual trademark," Variety's Todd Spangler reports.
The trademarks "reflect growing concern among talent in the entertainment industry about potential danger of AI to steal artists' ability to control their voice and likeness without their consent," Spangler writes...
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Saving the best for last...
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"A Polish influencer has broken the world record for charity fundraising during a live stream after bringing in over 59.1 million Euro in donations for children's cancer treatment during a nine-day online marathon that ended on Sunday," Olivier Sorgho reports for NFP. |
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