The Trump administration aims to “rebalance” the media by encouraging television broadcasters to “stand up” for their communities and air more patriotic programming, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr said in the latest episode of “Pod Force One.”
Carr used last year’s uproar over late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s inflammatory comments about conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination as an example of how such a rebalancing could play out and why it needs to happen.
“They’ve amassed a tremendous amount of power,” Carr said of the legacy television network broadcasters, “and they’ve effectively turned those local TV stations into mouthpieces for the foie gras, oftentimes, that they’re producing in New York and Hollywood.
“So, one of the North Stars of the policies we’re pushing here at the FCC is to rebalance that,” he told “Pod Force One” host Miranda Devine.
“We want to empower those local TV stations to actually stand up for their local communities,” the FCC chairman explained.
“And if New York or Hollywood is pushing programming that they don’t think is a good fit, then they can take action.
“In fact, that is what happened in the Kimmel episode, where you had owners of those local TV stations that said, right now, in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination, we have stations in Utah, stations in other places around the US, we don’t want to run that right now, and so they didn’t.”
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Disney, the parent company of ABC, suspended the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” host for five days last September after the comedian falsely suggested Kirk was killed by Trump supporters — despite authorities indicating that the Turning Point USA founder’s alleged assassin had left-wing views.
Disney’s decision came just hours after Carr signaled that ABC stations could be penalized if action wasn’t taken against Kimmel, and the same day Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group — which own about 70 local ABC affiliates — announced that they would refuse to air Kimmel’s show.
“I think that was a really good thing,” Carr said of Kimmel’s show being preempted by the local ABC affiliates. “It was the first sign in many, many years of a local TV station actually pushing back on New York and Hollywood, and we want to see a lot more of that.”
The FCC boss also discussed his recent “Pledge America Campaign,” which encourages broadcasters to air “pro-America” programming — like the Pledge of Allegiance — in support of the country’s 250th birthday.
“People love great pro-America stories, pro-America content,” Carr said. “If you look at the box office numbers, that stuff does phenomenally well.
“And, in fact, we’re trying to encourage broadcasters to do more of that. “
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Carr explained that through the Pledge America Campaign, the FCC is inviting broadcasters to “once again highlight the great wins of the country and to run patriotic programming, maybe starting off with Pledge of Allegiance, which we used to do, but just in lots of ways that you can run pro-America content.
“We think it would be a great thing for broadcasters to do, particularly this year,” Carr said.
