Brendan Carr's Half-Empty Threat

"Sikes, a conservative who was appointed by George H. W. Bush in 1989, engaged in a long-running battle against Howard Stern's employer, Infinity Broadcasting, levying repeated fines against its stations for violating rules against broadcasting "indecent" material when children were in the audience. (The legal tangle helped persuade Stern to move to satellite radio, where he faced no such editorial restrictions.)"

"Like his political patron, Donald Trump, Carr is fond of threatening TV networks whose programs displease him. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way," Carr said on a podcast last week. "These companies can find ways to change conduct and take actions on Kimmel, or there's going to be additional work for the FCC ahead." He seemed to be suggesting that the FCC would go after licenses held by ABC's parent company, Disney,"

Alfred Sikes imposed fines on Infinity Broadcasting for airing indecent material when children were in the audience but never sought to revoke station licenses. Sikes criticized Brendan Carr for threatening punitive FCC action against Jimmy Kimmel and TV networks, arguing that the public interest favors free expression. Carr warned that networks could face additional FCC work or consequences if they did not discipline Kimmel, apparently implying scrutiny of Disney's licenses. ABC briefly suspended Kimmel after affiliate pressure and then reinstated him. Practical and legal constraints make Carr's license-revocation threats unlikely to succeed.

Read at The Atlantic