As expected, Brendan Carr and the FCC on Tuesday unleashed license-renewal hell on The Walt Disney Co. However, with another Jimmy Kimmel brouhaha erupting with Donald Trump and MAGAland, the Josh D’Amaro-led Disney is playing it cool and playing along, at least for now.
“We have received the Federal Communications Commission’s order initiating an accelerated review of the licenses held by ABC’s owned television stations,” the Disney said immediately after the FCC ordered Disney “to file license renewals for all of their licensed TV stations within 30 days.”
The station renewals were originally set to occur in 2028 and 2031. Now Disney has to have all the paperwork in by May 28 at the latest.
In the pitched political environment, Disney added Tuesday: “ABC and its stations have a long record of operating in full compliance with FCC rules and serving their local communities with trusted news, emergency information, and public‑interest programming. We are confident that record demonstrates our continued qualifications as licensees under the Communications Act and the First Amendment and are prepared to show that through the appropriate legal channels. Our focus remains, as always, on serving viewers in the local communities where our stations operate.”
Under Trump loyalist Carr, the FCC already has been investigating Disney over its diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
However, let’s all be honest about what’s going on here: the timing of the Disney-described “accelerated review” comes 24 hours after Melania Trump condemned Kimmel online. Following a four-day delay and the horror of the shooter at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday, the first lady was outraged over a mock WHCD roast on Jimmy Kimmel Live! earlier in the week in which the late-night host referred to her as an “expectant widow.”
Donald Trump soon followed with his own conveniently timed outrage. Always quick to go after the late-night host, POTUS called for the Disney-owned ABC to fire Kimmel, who has long been a harsh critic of the former Apprentice host and his gang.
On his Monday show, Kimmel, who was pulled off the air last year by Disney for a week over comments about the death of conservative advocate Charlie Kirk, responded to the Trump and MAGA tsunami.
“It obviously was a joke about their age difference and the look of joy we see on her face every time they’re together,” he said near the top of the show. “It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am. It was not, by any stretch of the definition, a call to assassination, and they know that. I’ve been very vocal for many years, speaking out against gun violence, but I understand that the first lady had a stressful experience over the weekend, and probably every weekend is pretty stressful in that house.”
Jimmy Kimmel Live! was supposed to have mentalist and 2026 WHCD entertainer Oz Pearlman on as a guest last night, but Pearlman was absent from Monday’s show.
Having said that, recent Peabody Award winner Kimmel’s show is airing tonight as usual, and will continue to, sources close to the studio say.
