But, if you want to know from where Carr derives his authority to claim ABC was at risk for regulatory action, and to make what your characterizing as a "threat" is the following from federal statute:
NexStar and Sinclair could simply be acting because their leadership's beliefs align with Carr's and the administrations.
Yep but what dilutes the veracity of this “could simply be” is Trump and Carr have been conjoined since Trump’s inauguration, that’s 9 months. Kimmel didn’t change his left leaning identity upon the inauguration of Trump in January.
Sinclair owner is known as a conservative. Which means the stars have been aligned between Trump, Carr, and Sinclair’s “leadership beliefs” since Trump’s inauguration. Then one morning, 9 months after the alignment of “leadership beliefs” the Sinclair owner’s morning tumesence on the date of 9/17/25 points for the first time in 9 months in the direction of pre-empt Kimmel. Sinclair’s morning pointing tumescence was after 9 months was not because of Carr’s comment his license may be jeopardized.
Levity and cavalier aside, I said Carr’s comments significantly factored into pre-enticing Kimmel, my plain phrasing leaving room for other factors. The existence of shared “leadership beliefs” doesn’t dilute the free speech implication where Sinclair did factor Carr’s comments into its consideration.
NexStar is less plausible as Carr’s comments were a threat to their license and they require Carr’s acquiescence for their acquisition of Tengar. Those facts present a reasonably true proposition NexStar acted in part and significantly because of Carr’s remarks.
Finally, the qualifier “significantly” doesn’t establish the veracity of a free speech violation. Translation: something less than significant reliance upon Carr’s remakes but their reliance upon Carr’s remakes remains as a factor is sufficient to implicate free speech. There’s no such notion of a little infringement of free speech just as there’s no concept of a little pregnant.
- 47 U.S.C. § 309(k) — License renewal standard.
- 47 U.S.C. § 312(a) — Revocation of licenses.
So the regulatory hook Carr was gesturing at is the
public-interest obligation under §309(k) and potentially §312(a).
But you’re completely oblivious to the Supreme Court jurisprudence in regards to the statutes and free speech, right?
Here’s a link to renown Free Speech scholar, law school professor, Eugene Volokh, whose 1st Amendment book I sent a year reading during my 2L of law school.
ABC is free to suspend Jimmy Kimmel's show for whatever reason it wants to (at least unless there's some contractual…
reason.com
I’ll summarize a point he made, enforcement of “public interest obligation” cannot be based upon or because of the content of the message, speech, expression, that is, and receives, protection under the 1st Amendment. Kimmel’s message does not fall into any of the free speech exceptions, and Carr’s remarks demonstrate his threats are because of the content of the protected speech by Kimmel.
www.reuters.com
www.the-independent.com
