A group of petitions to deny ABC’s broadcast renewal license requests filed by several conservative organizations are accusing the Disney-owned network of sexual discrimination, political violence, violations of equal time rules, and bending to the will of Chinese operatives, among other charges.
The efforts to cancel ABC is heating up after Federal Communications Commission chief Brendan Carr opened the license renewal process to petitioners who oppose ABC’s renewal requests, The Guardian reports.
Carr opened the renewal process early noting that his agency is investigating the network over its woke diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies as well as equal time violations by Jimmy Kimmel; and the network’s daytime talk show, The View. And now the petitions from ABC’s detractors are flooding in.
The Center for American Rights, for instance, alleges that ABC is not being operated ““in the public interest” because of its “consistent and overt partisan bias.”
“ABC ignores long-standing Commission precedents and principles protecting the integrity of the news,” the group wrote citing programing such as Jimmy Kimmel’s show. “ABC engages in explicit racial and gender discrimination. ABC cozies up to the Communist Chinese Party and airbrushes over religious and ethnic cleansing. ABC fails to respect this Commission’s rules.”
The group added that ABC should be denied its license because i is not “operating in the public interest or remains worthy of the public trust.”
Non-profit media watchdog The Media Research Center also seeks to torpedo ABC’s license renewal “because of ABC’s continued and sustained abuse of the licenses subject to the current review, its notorious efforts to improperly influence national elections, and its willful engagement in misinformation and the promotion of violence.”
The organization goes on to accuse ABC and its various local affiliates — such as WABC in New York City — of using the “public spectrum to suppress news coverage of the most critical stories of our day; to engage in electioneering and relentless political bias; to excuse, minimize, and even justify the epidemic of political violence; and to peddle misinformation and defamation.”
Meanwhile, The Article III Project says Disney’s ABC is breaking equal opportunity employment laws.
“The Commission should deny renewal of ABC’s television licenses,” the group says. “The record demonstrates consistent and serious violations of federal [Equal Employment Opportunity] law. In the alternative, any renewal must include sweeping terms and conditions sufficient to eliminate all discriminatory practices and ensure future compliance.”
Finally, America First Legal says that ABC should be denied a license renewal because its stations “demonstrated a lack of the character qualifications necessary to hold broadcast licenses.”
Carr has yet to report a timeline for these proceedings, and has basically said it will take as long a sit takes to “apply the Communications At and the provisions” to the renewal process.
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