(Crankers) FCC Chair Brendan Carr explains why Jimmy Kimmel was able to be fired or suspended, and how it doesn’t fall under any sort of free speech protection.
“We’re on a cable show right now. If you don’t have an FCC license, you don’t have an obligation to serve the public interest. Podcasts don’t either. Stand-up comedians, whether they’re on lots of forms of communications, don’t. And Kimmel is free to do that.”
“But if you have a broadcast TV license, that means that you have something that very few people have. And you’re excluding other people from having access to that valuable public resource. And it comes with an obligation to serve the public interest.”
“And again, over the years, there’s been a rule in place at the FCC that local TV stations get to preempt programming that they don’t think meets the needs of their communities.”
“This is a very significant moment because local broadcasters are now pushing back on national programmers.”