Days after the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Jimmy Kimmel joked on his show that the "MAGA gang [was] desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it." This prompted Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr to threaten network broadcasting licenses, alleging that Kimmel's show violates "public interest, convenience or necessity," and to tell ABC that this could be resolved "the easy way or the hard way." The following day, ABC announced the indefinite suspension of Jimmy Kimmel LIVE!—a decision it reversed on Monday after public outcry.
Many conservatives, trying to remember where they put their keys and their beefs about cancel culture, see this as the way the cookie crumbles. Sen. Ted Cruz (R–Texas), however, believes that Carr was wrong and called this "mafioso" behavior "dangerous." The dispute highlights a century-old tension: political control over broadcast licenses and the power to shave free speech.
Broadcast TV and radio authorizations—held by stations in the ABC network—state that private companies cannot claim ownership of the radio spectrum. Access to airwaves is a privilege, not a right. This dates to the 1927 Radio Act, proposed by then–Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover and signed by President Calvin Coolidge. Its rules were repeated virtually verbatim in the 1934 Communications Act, amended in the 1996 Telecommunications Act, and constitute today's law of the land.
