00:00Now, the context of this is that there is uproar once again coming from the administration
00:06directed in particular at one particular host on ABC. Can you talk us through it?
00:12Yes, Caroline. So we've seen a clash over the last year between the Trump administration and
00:18Jimmy Kimmel on ABC. What's interesting about the latest action from the FCC is that it doesn't
00:25mention Jimmy Kimmel at all. It actually says eight licenses that ABC holds in major markets
00:32are up for early review because they have potentially been engaging in discrimination
00:40internally. So this review is based on a letter that FCC Chairman Brendan Carr sent over a year ago
00:48to the Disney CEO investigating some of the hiring and employment practices inside of the company.
00:55So that's really what this review is about on paper. Internally, I am hearing that a lot of
01:01people do suspect that this is in fact related. Kelsey, there's an individual at the heart of
01:08this, which is Brendan Carr. Lucas was on the show yesterday and we went through the kind of
01:13specific incident of the last week and then what happened at the end of last year.
01:17What role is the FCC chair? Does he play in this? What power does he or the actual committee actually
01:24have to do anything about it? The FCC chairman is all powerful in terms of what gets done by the
01:31agency. So Carr definitely knows about this probe. Nothing gets done without his knowledge and his
01:38consent. So that is one thing to keep in mind. The FCC would then kick off review of these licenses
01:46in a
01:46semi-judicial process. This could either play out in front of the full commission where the commission
01:52essentially holds court and investigates whether the stations have been behaving in the public
01:58interest. And then it could also go to an administrative law judge internally at the FCC.
02:04Either way, the FCC chairman has a lot of oversight about how this process plays out.
Comments