FCC’s Brendan Carr: ‘Broadcast Licenses Are Not Sacred Cows’

EXCERPT:

CARR: “What I can tell you is obviously we've called in Disney's ABC licenses early for early renewal. That's pending before the FCC. There have been petitions to deny the renewal of those station licenses. Disney now is in the process of being able to file in response to that. And we're going to look at what the arguments are. But ultimately, if Disney has not been operating its ABC TV stations in the public interest over the last several years, then that's a pretty long put for them. But ultimately, we have not made our decision yet, but we'll be guided based on the record before us. But of course, we're open minded to that type of outcome, whether it's for Disney or others. As I said before, broadcast licenses are not sacred cows. You have to comply with certain public interest obligations to get them and to maintain them and to renew them. If there's nothing you could do to ever lose a license, then it's not a license. It's something entirely different. And so we do want to take a hard look at broadcasters as a general matter and make sure they're living up to, again, that fundamental deal the American people were supposed to benefit from.”