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FCC reviews network-affiliate agreements after Trump's ABC

license comments

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FCC to ask whether national broadcasters should be able to

punish affliates for not showing programs

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FCC Chair Carr faced bipartisan criticism over Kimmel show

suspension comments

By David Shepardson and Dawn Chmielewski

WASHINGTON, Nov 19 (Reuters) - The White House ratcheted

up its attack on ABC News Wednesday, a day after U.S. President

Donald Trump criticized an ABC News correspondent for asking

Saudi Arabia's crown prince about the 2018 killing of a

Washington Post columnist.

The fresh critique came as the Federal Communications

Commission said Wednesday it was opening a review of agreements

between national networks and local broadcast stations. Trump

suggested the commission should move to revoke the broadcast

licenses of Disney ( DIS )-owned ABC stations following

questions about Jamal Khashoggi that he called "insubordinate."

FCC Chair Brendan Carr, a Republican, said the review will

cover when stations can opt not to air programming on public

interest grounds. The FCC, an independent federal agency, issues

eight-year licenses to individual broadcast stations, not

networks.

The White House press office described ABC News as "a

Democratic spin operation masquerading as a broadcast network"

in an email sent to the press, which included a list of

grievances against the network dating from 2017. It accused ABC

News of waging "war" on the president and the millions of

Americans who elected him to office.

Disney ( DIS )-owned ABC News declined comment.

In September, Carr praised two major broadcast owners,

Sinclair Broadcast Group and Nexstar Media Group ( NXST )

, who briefly opted not to air of "Jimmy Kimmel Live!"

on their 70 ABC-affiliated stations covering nearly a quarter of

U.S. households. Nexstar needs FCC approval to acquire

Tegna ( TGNA ) in a $3.54 billion deal and on Tuesday formally

submitted an application to the agency.

ABC suspended Kimmel's show on September 17 over comments he

made about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie

Kirk. Hours before the suspension, Carr warned that local

broadcasters who aired Kimmel could face fines or loss of

licenses and said "it's time for them to step up."

Carr came under bipartisan criticism for those comments and will

appear before the Senate Commerce Committee on December 17.

Contracts between the networks and affiliates have penalties

for not airing programming for extended periods. The FCC notice

asks "are national programmers able to take actions or threaten

to punish local broadcast TV stations that attempt to exercise

their lawful right to preempt national programming?"

The agency asked if it should adopt regulations to address

"anticompetitive leverage and behavior by large networks?"

Carr said the FCC had initiated the review because national

programmers are "reportedly preventing those broadcasters from

serving their local communities - including by punishing them

for exercising their right to preempt national programming."

Last December, ABC News agreed to give $15 million to the

Trump presidential library to resolve a lawsuit over comments

that anchor George Stephanopoulos made on air involving the

civil case brought against Trump by writer E. Jean Carroll.

Carr has taken a series of steps to investigate media

companies. In July, he opened a probe into NBC-parent Comcast's ( CMCSA )

relationships with its local broadcast TV affiliates.

The FCC in July approved the $8.4 billion merger between CBS

parent Paramount Global and Skydance Media after Skydance agreed

to ensure CBS news and entertainment programming is free of bias

and end diversity programs. The approval came weeks after

Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to settle Trump's lawsuit

against CBS over its editing of a "60 Minutes" interview with

his Democratic presidential opponent, Kamala Harris.