Brendan Carr’s Deregulation Blitz Is a Disaster for TV News

Last month, when Jimmy Kimmel was briefly taken off ABC as punishment for comments he’d made on air about Charlie Kirk, the move was widely understood to be the outcome of a brazen flex of influence by Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Appearing on a conservative podcast, Carr had delivered an open warning to the television stations that aired Kimmel, saying, “These companies can find ways to change conduct to take action on Kimmel or, you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”  

Carr’s threat had teeth. Under his leadership, the FCC is in the midst of a historic deregulation spree he’s calling “Delete, Delete, Delete.” The campaign is currently reviewing the agency’s “multiple ownership” rules, which prohibit any one company from exerting outsize control over the local television market. A loosening of those rules could prove immensely profitable for the owners of local ABC affiliates, including Nexstar and Sinclair, so those companies seem to have viewed Carr’s desire to punish Kimmel as an opportunity to curry favor with the administration.

Kimmel was reinstated after Carr faced criticism from fellow Republicans for acting like a “mafioso.” Still, the whole affair sent a chill through the local-television business. S. Derek Turner, a policy analyst for the advocacy group Free Press, saw it as a perfect encapsulation of how Carr is using his “Delete, Delete, Delete” initiative as a way for the FCC to exert political influence over the companies it’s meant to oversee. “I don’t think it’s much of a surprise that Carr is pushing things as far as he can,” Turner said, noting that Carr wrote the chapter in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 document about the agency he currently leads. “What makes what’s going on right now somewhat unique—and I would say corrupt—is the out and open quid pro quo that Carr is effectuating.”