The Media Research Center just dropped a 24-page reply with the Federal Communications Commission arguing that ABC/Disney should be denied broadcast license renewals for eight ABC-owned affiliate stations. Not fined. Not warned. Denied.
That's the nuclear option in broadcast regulation. And someone finally pushed the button.
MRC President David Bozell laid out the core argument in terms even a Disney executive could understand: "ABC's opposition to the MRC petition effectively boils down to a 'squatters rights' argument." The network, Bozell explained, is treating publicly owned broadcast spectrum as personal property. "Someone else may own the property, have the statutory right to license the property, and bear the responsibility to ensure the property is well maintained, but ABC seems to believe it has an entitlement to control the property in perpetuity."
As Bozell pointed out, that's not how this works. "Broadcast spectrum is publicly owned, and a license to use it is a limited-term privilege conditioned on compliance with statutory and contractual obligations." The MRC's filing alleges ABC engaged in partisan electioneering, broadcast misinformation, and justified political violence — all while operating under a license that requires serving the public interest.
The stations in question serve markets in New York and Connecticut, and the MRC's petition asks the FCC to conclude that renewal isn't warranted. The filing's language is direct: "ABC promised to uphold the public interest, but then refused to do so. On this record, the Commission should conclude that renewal is not warranted and should permit a qualified successor licensee to serve the public."
Disney's legal team will argue precedent — that the FCC has almost never denied a license renewal, that the bar is extraordinarily high, that this petition is politically motivated. And every one of those arguments concedes the central point: broadcast licenses come with obligations. The question isn't whether the FCC has historically enforced those obligations. The question is whether a network that openly abandoned them should keep benefiting from the assumption that it didn't.
For years, the playbook in conservative media was to complain about bias, maybe cancel a subscription, occasionally write a column. The MRC just filed a 24-page document with the federal government asking it to hand ABC's broadcast frequencies to someone who'll actually use them responsibly.
The spectrum belongs to the public. The license is a privilege. ABC treated it like a birthright.
Privileges get revoked.
