00:00There's a very concerted effort to try to lie to the American people about the nature, as you indicated, one of the most significant newsworthy public interest acts that we've seen in a long time.
00:15And what appears to be an action appears to be an action by Jimmy Kimmel to play into that narrative that this was somehow a MAGA or Republican motivated person.
00:30If that's what happened here with his conduct, that is that is really, really sick.
00:34I've been very clear. They have a license granted by us at the FCC and that comes with it an obligation to operate in the public interest.
00:43And we can get into some ways that we've been trying to reinvigorate the public interest and some changes that we've seen.
00:48But frankly, when you see stuff like this, I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.
00:53These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel or there's going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.
01:04Obviously, there's calls for Kimmel to be fired.
01:07I think, you know, you could certainly see a path forward for suspension over this.
01:14And again, you know, the FCC is going to have remedies that we could look at.
01:18And again, you know, we may ultimately be called to be a judge on that.
01:21But this also strikes me as sort of conduct that to some extent shows some sort of desperate irrelevance.
01:29I mean, look, NPR has been defunded. PBS has been defunded. Colbert is retiring.
01:35Joy Reid is out at MSNBC. Terry Moran has gone from ABC and now admitting that they are biased.
01:43CBS has now made some commitments to us that they're going to return to more fact based journalism.
01:48And so I think you see some lashing out from people like Kimmel who are, frankly, talentless.
01:56We have a rule on the book that interprets a public interest standard that says news distortion is something that is prohibited.
02:04Likewise, we have a rule that addresses broadcast hoaxes.
02:07And so, again, over the years, the FCC has stepped back from enforcing it.
02:11And I don't think it's been to the benefit of anybody.
02:13Just look at the credibility of these legacy media.
02:16It's absolutely through the floor.
02:18They used to be able to say at least they were more trustworthy than Congress, but now they're even less trustworthy than Congress.
02:23And so I think as a business matter for them, something has to change.
02:26And at the FCC, you know, we need to reinvigorate this.
02:29So, again, there's actions that we can take on licensed broadcasters.
02:32And, frankly, I think that it's really sort of past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back on Comcast and Disney and say,
02:41listen, we are going to preempt, we are not going to run Kimmel anymore until you straighten this out.
02:47Because we, we licensed broadcaster, are running the possibility of fines or licensed revocation from the FCC if we continue to run content that ends up being a pattern of news distortion.
02:58So I think, again, Disney needs to see some change here, but the individual licensed stations that are taking their content, it's time for them to step up and say this, you know, garbage, to the extent that that's what comes down the pipe in the future, isn't something that we think serves the needs of our local communities.
03:15But a final question to you, do you believe that what Jimmy Kimmel said rises to the level of news distortion?
03:22Look, again, the FCC could be called upon to be an ultimate judge in that.
03:26But at this point, I think it's, you know, clear, it appears to be clear that you can make a strong argument that this is sort of an intentional effort to mislead the American people about a very core fundamental fact to a very important matter.
03:42At the end of the day, if we do get called upon to cast a vote on this, Disney will have a chance to put in their arguments and explain it.
03:50But, you know, this is a very, very, you know, serious issue right now for Disney.
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