President-elect Trump’s pick to chair the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) sent Disney CEO Bob Iger a letter warning that he would be “monitoring” ABC’s negotiations with local stations to ensure they can serve “local communities.”
The letter from FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, dated Saturday, focuses on so-called “affiliate agreements” with local stations, which ABC is currently renegotiating with local stations that carry its programming.
“As you know, affiliate agreements establish the contractual terms that govern many features of ABC’s relationship with the dozens of licensed local broadcast TV stations across the country,” Carr wrote in the letter, posted on the social platform X by CNN’s Brian Stelter on Monday.
Carr noted these deals included the rights to ABC’s Good Morning America, World News Tonight with David Muir, NFL football and Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show, setting the terms for how much local outlets pay for ABC content.
Carr cited reporting that some ABC affiliate agreements were set to expire by the year’s end without new deals, and suggested local viewers could pay the price.
“My understanding is that ABC is attempting to extract onerous financial and operational concessions from local broadcast TV stations under the threat of terminating long-held affiliations, which could result in blackouts and other harms to local consumers of broadcast news and content,” he added.
“I want you to know that I will be monitoring the outcome of your ongoing discussions with local broadcast TV stations to ensure that those negotiations enable local broadcast TV stations to meet their federal obligations to serve the needs of their local communities. A fair agreement would do just that,” the letter concluded.
Carr’s letter follows ABC News and anchor George Stephanopoulos recently agreeing to settle a defamation suit brought by Trump by issuing a public apology and giving $15 million to fund the president-elect’s future presidential library.
The settlement sent chills through the media as Trump prepares to return to the White House next month.
Carr has often echoed Trump’s criticism of the mainstream media.
Last month, Carr criticized the appearance of Vice President Harris on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live,” saying it was “a clear and blatant effort to evade the FCC’s Equal Time rule.” NBC went on to air a message from Trump in an apparent bid to provide equal time.
Trump also suggested ABC News be punished for what he claimed was a biased performance by debate moderators, after he was widely seen as losing his only debate against Vice President Harris in September.
The Hill has reached out to Disney for comment.
