American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission
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Overview
Overview
The Walt Disney Company, American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. (ABC), and ABC's eight owned-and-operated television stations sued the Federal Communications Commission and its commissioners on August 18, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging that the agency has waged a retaliatory campaign against ABC for its news coverage and editorial choices in violation of the First Amendment. The complaint centers on an FCC order directing all eight ABC stations to file broadcast-license-renewal applications years ahead of schedule, which ABC calls unprecedented and says was meant to punish the network for its speech. ABC pleads a single claim of First Amendment retaliation, brought as a suit in equity, and asks the court to block the FCC from acting on the early-renewal applications or issuing a hearing designation order that could threaten the stations' licenses. The plaintiffs are represented by Beth A. Wilkinson and Paul D. Clement.
The Facts
Background
According to the complaint, the dispute grew out of a September 2025 controversy over on-air remarks by late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr publicly warned that broadcasters could address the matter "the easy way or the hard way," ABC briefly suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live! and then restored it, and Carr later told reporters that companies that did not take the agency seriously should now do so. In July 2026, ABC declined to carry a presidential address live and instead streamed it on ABC News LIVE, and during that address the President called for revocation of ABC's broadcast licenses. The complaint alleges that one day after the President called for Kimmel's firing, the FCC ordered all eight ABC-owned stations to file license-renewal applications early, in several cases years before their terms reached the halfway point. ABC also points to two FCC investigations it describes as the vehicles for the pressure: an equal-employment inquiry that it says required responses to hundreds of requests and thousands of pages of production, and a separate proceeding examining the network's program The View. These are the plaintiffs' allegations; the FCC has not yet filed its response.
The Issue
Issue
The case presents two questions. First, whether the FCC's order requiring ABC's stations to seek early license renewals, together with the related conduct ABC describes, amounts to unconstitutional retaliation against ABC for protected First Amendment expression. Second, a threshold procedural question the FCC has raised: whether a challenge of this kind may be heard in a federal district court at all, or whether review of the agency's licensing decisions must instead proceed in a federal court of appeals.
The Rules
The Governing Law
ABC brings its claim directly under the First Amendment as a suit in equity. The governing principle it invokes is that government officials may not use their regulatory power to retaliate against, coerce, or punish a speaker because of the speaker's protected expression, drawing on the Supreme Court's 2024 decision in National Rifle Association v. Vullo. The FCC, for its part, points to the statutes that channel review of certain agency licensing orders to the federal courts of appeals rather than the district courts. The court has not yet ruled on either the constitutional claim or the jurisdictional objection; both are to be briefed and argued in the fall of 2026.
The Conclusion
Where It Stands
As of August 21, 2026, no ruling has issued. ABC moved for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction the same day it filed suit. On August 20, Judge Loren L. AliKhan set a briefing schedule under which the FCC's opposition and any motion to dismiss are due September 3, 2026, replies follow through September 24, and the court will hear the motions the week of October 5, 2026. Rather than rule on the restraining order right away, the judge established a standby trigger: if the FCC issues a hearing designation order against any ABC station license, the parties must appear the next business day to argue whether a temporary restraining order should issue. The FCC has signaled that it will move to dismiss, arguing in part that challenges to its licensing orders belong in a federal court of appeals rather than a district court.
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