Carr tried to cast Kimmel’s suspension as the result of organic pressure from licensed broadcasters, rather than FCC coercion. “There’s no untoward coercion happening here,” Carr told Jennings. “The market was intended to function this way, where local TV stations get to push back.”
But TV station owners did so in exactly the way that Carr urged them to. “The individual licensed stations that are taking their content, it’s time for them to step up and say this garbage isn’t something that we think serves the needs of our local communities,” Carr said on Johnson’s podcast. Carr said that Kimmel’s monologue “appears to be some of the sickest conduct possible.”
On the Jennings show, Carr alleged that Democrats in the previous administration implemented “a two-tiered weaponized system of justice,” and that his FCC is instead giving everyone “a fair shake and even-handed treatment.”
Carr has repeatedly threatened broadcasters with the FCC’s rarely enforced news distortion policy. As we’ve explained, the FCC technically has no rule or regulation against news distortion, which is why it is called a policy and not a rule. But on Jennings’ show, he described it as a rule.
“We do have those rules at the FCC: If you engage in news distortion, we can take action,” Carr said.
As we’ve written several times, it is difficult legally for the FCC to revoke broadcast licenses. But it isn’t difficult for Carr to exert pressure on networks and broadcasters through public statements. Carr suggested yesterday that broadcasters turn in their licenses if they don’t like his approach to enforcement.
“If you’re a broadcaster and you don’t like being held accountable for the first time in a long time through the public interest standard, that’s fine. You can turn your license in to the FCC, we’ll find something else to do with it,” Carr said. “Or you can go to Congress and say, ‘I don’t want the FCC having public interest obligations on broadcasters anymore, I want broadcasters to be like cable, to be like a streaming service.’ That’s fine too. But as long as that’s the system that Congress has created, we’re going to enforce it.”
Leave a Reply