We support our Publishers and Content Creators. You can view this story on their website by CLICKING HERE.
President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Brendan Carr, sent a letter warning Disney CEO Bob Iger that he will be “monitoring” ABC’s negotiations with local stations to ensure they can serve “local communities.”
The letter, dated this past Saturday, is focused on “affiliate agreements” with local stations that carry ABC programming, according to The Hill.
“As you know, affiliate agreements establish the contractual terms that govern many features of ABC’s relationship with the dozens of licensed local broadcast TV stations across the country,” Carr wrote in the letter, which was posted by CNN’s Brian Stelter on X on Monday.
Carr noted that some ABC affiliate agreements were about to expire without new deals in place.
“My understanding is that ABC is attempting to extract onerous financial and operational concessions from local broadcast TV stations under the threat of terminating long-held affiliations, which could result in blackouts and other harms to local consumers of broadcast news and content,” he added.
“I want you to know that I will be monitoring the outcome of your ongoing discussions with local broadcast TV stations to ensure that those negotiations enable local broadcast TV stations to meet their federal obligations to serve the needs of their local communities. A fair agreement would do just that,” the letter concluded.
The letter follows the recent settlement between the network and Donald Trump over Trump’s defamation suit. The network agreed to pay $15 million to Trump’s future library and $1 million from George Stephanopoulos to cover Trump’s legal fees. Trump said in the lawsuit that Stephanopoulos defamed him during an interview with Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., when he said that Trump had been found civilly liable for rape.