ABC wants the FCC to revoke its early “punitive” licenses for its stations

ABC he legally objected to the Federal Communications Commission’s efforts to force it to reissue its television licenses, calling it an effort to restrict broadcasters’ speech across the country.

In a new filing with the FCC, ABC says the agency’s willingness to renew its eight licenses before they expire is “unusual and unprecedented.” The company says the FCC has “spent the last 18 months looking for reasons to revoke the Stations’ licenses,” but says the agency’s intent to pursue the licenses is clear: “Everything is ABC, and the Government has openly and repeatedly called for the inclusion of ABC’s licenses, because it hates ABC programming.” The FCC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The fight over station licenses has drawn support for the ABC, including from viewers boosted by on-air advertising providing public feedback. More than 153,000 comments have been left on the FCC’s docket, including from a two-part group of former FCC chairs and officials who criticized the agency’s actions as part of a “wider pattern” in a “campaign to punish those who oppose Trump”.

“The ABC’s retaliation is a signal to every media company in the country: follow the Government’s views on what news should be or pay the price,” the ABC wrote in its latest newsletter. “The tools differ; the intent is not: media companies are too afraid of criticism to report freely.”