WABC files early renewal ‘under protest,’ calls FCC order ‘unconstitutional’

Walt Disney Co.’s ABC-owned stations called a Federal Communications Commission order that they file early license renewals “unlawful, arbitrary, and unconstitutional.”

In a letter attached to one of the license renewals, submitted on May 28, ABC-owned WABC New York noted that the “Commission had not demanded early renewal in over five decades. And it has never before demanded simultaneous license renewal applications from a group of stations commonly owned with a network as it has here.”

The objection, filed alongside the renewal application itself, sets out a multi-front legal argument against the April 28 order issued by the Media Bureau in DA 26-416. The filing was submitted “without waiving any rights” and asks the commission to rescind the order.

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The DEI rationale, and what it followed

The April 28 order grounded the early renewal demand in the FCC’s ongoing investigation into Disney’s diversity, equity and inclusion practices. WABC’s filing called that rationale pretextual.

The DEI investigation began with a June 5, 2025, Letter of Inquiry from the Enforcement Bureau. In the months that followed, the agency’s posture toward Disney and ABC moved well beyond an employment-practices inquiry. In August 2025, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that ABC should “lose their Licenses for their unfair coverage of Republicans and/or Conservatives.”

In September 2025, ABC suspended late-night host Jimmy Kimmel following remarks Kimmel made about the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Chairman Brendan Carr, in remarks reported by The Associated Press at the time, told broadcasters they could do this “the easy way or the hard way” and suggested stations could lose their licenses if they did not “correct course.”

Kimmel’s suspension was later lifted, but the episode became a reference point in subsequent debate over FCC pressure on broadcasters. When the early renewal order was released April 28, Carr publicly maintained the directive was about the DEI investigation and not about Kimmel, in an interview with Fox News reported April 30.

WABC’s filing cited the timing as evidence of the opposite. The order, the filing said, “suddenly emerged the day after public calls for punitive action in response to comments made during ABC Network programming.”

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Procedural objections

WABC argued that the order is inconsistent with Section 309(k) of the Communications Act, which requires the commission to evaluate renewal applications based on a licensee’s performance “during the preceding term of its license.”

The station’s current license was renewed Aug. 28, 2024, and runs until June 1, 2031.

The filing also noted that Section 307(d) prohibits the commission from granting a renewal more than 30 days before license expiration. With more than four years remaining on the current license, the station argued, the proceeding cannot result in a renewal grant during the current administration. The only possible outcomes during this term, the filing said, are adverse action or an open proceeding that leaves what WABC called “the Sword of Damocles” of a hearing or revocation hanging over the station.

The filing identified a separate procedural issue.

The Media Bureau, without notice to the station, altered the license expiration date for WABC and the seven other ABC-owned stations in the FCC’s Licensing and Management System and Online Public Inspection File to May 28, 2026. The bureau told the station the change was a technical adjustment to allow its filing systems to process an early renewal. WABC argued that if read literally, the change would conflict with Section 316 of the act, which governs modification of station licenses.

The 30-day deadline

Under the FCC’s standard process, television renewal applications are filed in regional groups over a roughly three-year cycle, with a licensee typically given months of preparation time. WABC said it had 30 days. The station requested a 60-day extension to compile a more thorough record. The Media Bureau denied the request without explanation.

The order also required all eight ABC-owned stations to file simultaneously, a configuration the filing said exceeds anything in the commission’s renewal history. Under standard scheduling, ABC would never file more than three applications on the same date.

The cited investigation

The order grounded the early renewal demand in the FCC’s ongoing investigation into Disney’s diversity, equity and inclusion practices. WABC’s filing called that rationale pretextual and identified what it said were inconsistencies in the agency’s own conduct.

The investigation began with a June 5, 2025, Letter of Inquiry from the Enforcement Bureau. The filing said Disney produced more than 6,200 pages of documents between July and September 2025 under a mutually agreed schedule. A supplemental letter of inquiry arrived Feb. 20, 2026, and the company responded April 21 with a 38-page narrative and 4,839 additional pages of documents.

The early renewal order was issued seven days later.

The Enforcement Bureau did not communicate any deficiencies in the April 21 response until May 15, two weeks after the renewal order and after Commissioner Anna Gomez and several news outlets had publicly questioned whether the renewal directive was tied to the investigation. On that date, bureau staff sent an 11-page addendum identifying alleged gaps.

“If the Bureau remained fully capable of obtaining the information it sought through ordinary investigative tools as it did on May 15, 2026, the Commission cannot explain why an extraordinary acceleration of license renewals was needed,” the filing said. “That is because the asserted deficiencies did not necessitate the April 28 Order; they simply supplied a pretext for it.”

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The filing also noted that license renewal applications do not request information about employment practices beyond confirming that standard Equal Employment Opportunity reports have been filed. The renewal process, it argued, is not designed to adjudicate the questions the DEI investigation is asking.

First Amendment claim

WABC framed the order as content-based retaliation directed at editorial decisions.

The filing cited public statements from Carr, including the “easy way or the hard way” remarks from the Kimmel period, a March 2026 social media post threatening broadcast licenses over news coverage, and a May 2026 Financial Times interview in which Carr said, “If you didn’t take us seriously, now you should.” It also cited Trump’s August 2025 Truth Social post.

The filing quoted Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who in December 2025 called one of Carr’s threats to broadcasters “dangerous as hell” and warned that “[g]overnment officials threatening adverse consequences for disfavored content is an unconstitutional coercion that chills protected speech.” The filing also cited Gomez’s May 11 letter to Disney’s chief executive, which characterized the agency’s actions as “a sustained, coordinated campaign of censorship and control.”

WABC argued that even if its compliance record were imperfect, the chosen sanction would be disproportionate. The filing said the station had no enforcement violations during the license term under review.

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A 60-year record, attached

In an unusual move for a license renewal, WABC submitted an accompanying public interest statement detailing its programming and community service.

The document is structured as a record the station said it would not normally need to provide, but felt compelled to compile given what it called the extraordinary nature of the proceeding.

The exhibit said WABC produces between 48 and 51 hours of live local news per week. It cited 36 local Emmy Awards over the past two years, a 2025 national Edward R. Murrow Award for investigative reporting, and consumer reporting through the station’s “7 On Your Side” unit that recovered $2.7 million for viewers since August 2024. The station operates from 7 Hudson Square in Manhattan, maintains four news bureaus across the metro area and employs more than 220 local staff.

The filing also recapped specific reporting initiatives the station said had policy outcomes, including a “7 On Your Side Investigates” series on squatters that the document said contributed to a change in New York state law, and collaborative reporting with ABC News on an online network preying on minors that drew a public response from FBI Director Kash Patel.

What comes next

The objection does not by itself stop the proceeding.

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WABC has complied with the filing requirement under protest and asked the commission to rescind the order. The filing reserves all rights and indicates the station intends to supplement the record as circumstances require.

The seven other ABC-owned stations filed similar applications by the same May 28 deadline.

The renewal applications and the underlying DEI investigation now proceed on parallel tracks at the commission. Neither has an announced resolution timeline.

The objection is at minimum a marker for any subsequent appeal. WABC’s filing cited the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in National Rifle Association v. Vullo, which addressed government coercion of speech through regulatory means, and the 1975 D.C. Circuit opinion in Illinois Citizens Committee for Broadcasting, which described the threat posed by what then-Chief Judge David Bazelon called “sub rosa bureaucratic hassling” of licensees.