Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr told Fox News’ Hannity on Wednesday that late-night hosts have shifted from being “court jesters” to “court clerics.”
The remarks followed ABC’s decision to indefinitely pull Jimmy Kimmel Live! after the host’s controversial comments about Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Host Sean Hannity pressed Carr to explain the move.
“Yeah, broadcasters are different than any other form of communication, including here, we’re on cable right now. Fox News doesn’t have an FCC license. CNN doesn’t, but ABC, CBS, NBC, those broadcast stations do. And with that license comes a unique obligation to operate in the public interest. And over the years, the FCC walked away from enforcing that public interest obligation,” Carr said. “I don’t think we’re better off as a country for it.”
“But look, President Trump ran directly at these legacy broadcast outlets, and he exposed them to these market forces. A lot of these affiliate groups said, to your point, ‘We’re tired of carrying this stuff.’ Late night shows, something’s gone seriously awry there. They went from going for applause, from laugh lines to applause lines. They went from being court jesters that would make fun of everybody in power to being court clerics and enforcing a very narrow political ideology,” Carr added.
The ABC decision came shortly after Nexstar Media Group — one of the nation’s largest station owners — said it would preempt Jimmy Kimmel Live! across its owned and partner affiliates. Nexstar Broadcasting Division President Andrew Alford called Kimmel’s remarks “offensive and insensitive” in a statement, saying the move was meant to “let cooler heads prevail.”
“And Nexstar, as you noted, stood up and said, ‘Look, we have the license, and we don’t want to run this anymore. We don’t think it serves the interests of our community.’ Sinclair did the same thing,” Carr said. “So there’s more work to do, but I’m very glad to see that America’s broadcasters are standing up to serve the interests of their community. We don’t just have this progressive foie gras coming out from New York and Hollywood.”
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