00:00In recent interviews, you've also been asked, of course, about Disney, and you've said that you've not made a decision
00:07on whether to pull Disney's broadcast licenses over various diversity and inclusion practices.
00:15Again, remind us of the FCC's remit in that area, but what it would take for you to look at
00:20a potential action.
00:23Yeah, with respect to Disney in particular, the FCC has three proceedings that are going on, or sort of three
00:29buckets of issues.
00:31One, starting all the way back in March of 2025, I wrote a letter to Disney leadership raising concerns about
00:38some of their practices, including what we call invidious forms of DEI discrimination,
00:42where there's potential evidence indicating that they may have been discriminating with respect to pay or compensation or workplace opportunities
00:50based on race, gender, or protected characteristics.
00:54There's a role for the FCC there. We have particular rules on EEO policies and discrimination.
00:59So we've been looking into that for quite a while. In fact, we've been doing some letters of inquiry, our
01:04versions of subpoena,
01:05and frankly, the view was that Disney was being disingenuous in the way it was responding to the FCC's inquiries.
01:12And so we took the next step in our enforcement abilities, which is we called in all of Disney's broadcast
01:20licenses for early renewal.
01:22So Disney has now applied, and they have to demonstrate that they've been operating in the public interest.
01:28There have been petitions to deny the renewal of those Disney stations.
01:33And so the FCC is looking at all of that very carefully right now.
01:36To your point, we've not made the final decision.
01:38But at this point, Disney is demonstrating, attempting to demonstrate that it should get those licenses renewed.
01:44And we'll ultimately see what the record shows.
01:46We also have obviously a separate issue going on with Disney right now with respect to the view and their
01:51claims of the view being a bona fide news program.
01:53But we have the DEI, the license renewal in the view proceeding going.
01:58But more broadly, we're trying to hold all broadcasters accountable to their public interest standard.
02:03We have issued similar actions with respect to a number of other broadcasters.
02:08I think for years, people took the view that broadcast TV should be treated just like cable or a podcast
02:13or a newspaper.
02:13But that's not what the Communications Act and Congress said.
02:16And so we want to make sure that all broadcasters are, in fact, living up to their public interest obligations.
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