On Sept. 24, Jimmy Kimmel returned to late-night television just days after his show was suspended by Disney in response to criticism from FCC Chair Brendan Carr, warning that affiliated broadcasters could face scrutiny over their FCC licenses. 

While the show’s reinstatement may have calmed some of the backlash, it reflects a shift in how the FCC is using its power. Media companies are finding that regulatory approval can come with political strings attached, which leaves people wondering: what exactly does the FCC regulate and what are the limits?

The Federal Communications Commission, created in 1934, is an independent agency of the U.S. government charged with regulating the country’s communications systems.

“Congress created this agency, to be the traffic cop of the airwaves,” said Harold Feld, senior vice president of Public Knowledge, a think tank.

Its mandate was to prevent interference between competing radio signals and later to manage the expansion of television, satellite, and internet communications. In practice, that means the FCC approves new broadcasting licenses, renews old ones, and signs off on company mergers.

“It assigns them spectrum to local markets and then regulates the use of that spectrum for the transmission of information to a local area,” said Christopher Terry, associate professor of Media Law at the Hubbard School of Journalism.

The FCC does set some guidelines for the kind of content being aired, but it is limited. There are regulations set to deal with things like “political advertising, indecency, and obscenity during certain hours.” But when it comes to regulations on political speech, the agency’s hands are tied.

“It cannot discriminate against one broadcaster for the information that they say versus another broadcaster. And they can't discriminate based on, say, political views,” said Wayne Unger, associate professor of law at Quinnipiac University School of Law. “Those would be blatant violations of the First Amendment.”

That’s what makes the Jimmy Kimmel suspension so unusual. Kimmel made comments surrounding the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk on his late night talk show. The FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, stated in a podcast interview that Kimmel’s statements could lead to the FCC revoking ABC affiliate stations’ licenses. Disney suspended Kimmel shortly after.

Now the FCC can’t censor content. But it does have influence over ABC’s affiliates. In this case, it was the Nexstar–Tegna merger, a deal requiring FCC approval for more than 60 local stations.

And each station’s license must still be individually approved by the FCC. But the agency can move as slowly as it likes.

“Carr can do one thing above all, and that’s slow that process down,” Terry said. “He can slow it to a crawl and make it very painful for those two companies to try to do that. He did that earlier this year with the Paramount–CBS merger, laying conditions on the deal until CBS sort of knuckled under.”

Many of ABC’s local affiliates are part of networks that rely on regulatory approvals to operate and expand. Delay a merger, and you delay potentially lucrative deals, cost millions, and create headaches that ripple through the system until stations buckle.

“He can't directly attack them for their political content, but there's other things he can do in lieu of that that are basically attacks for their political content that would be fairly substantial,” Terry said.

Unger noted that applying this kind of pressure could, in theory, leave the FCC vulnerable to legal scrutiny.

“Where we would have a First Amendment claim is the FCC chairman's actions as well as Donald Trump's actions and specifically their comments and the threat of revoking ABC affiliate licenses,” Unger said. “That would be a concrete government action or a threat of a government action that is prohibited by the First Amendment because it directly connects the potential revocation of these licenses to what Jimmy Kimmel said.”

Now Kimmel is back on the air, and for most viewers, the issue seems to have passed. But this was far from a one-off. The FCC has long wielded this carrot-and-stick approach on multiple occasions, especially since Carr became chairman. 

“The chairman has not been shy about using this control over mergers to push the Trump agenda in this way,” Feld said

Earlier this year, Carr leaned on companies involved in major mergers — Verizon and Frontier, and T-Mobile and U.S. Cellular — telling them they would need to scrap their DEI hiring programs to get regulatory approval.

“Any businesses that are looking for FCC approval, I would encourage them to get busy ending any sort of their invidious forms of DEI discrimination,” Carr said in an interview in March.

A similar strategy was applied to a merger between Skydance and Paramount, which owns CBS and 60 minutes. Their deal sat in limbo.

“There really wasn't anything wrong with this transaction because Skydance didn't own any other media properties. So under a traditional antitrust analysis, it should have just gone through,” Feld said.

To move the merger forward, Skydance executives met with Carr directly. And then right before the deal closed, they canceled the “Late Night Show with Stephen Colbert,” which was known for its criticism of the president.

“Now, is there anything in the record that says, ‘and then the chairman asked us to cancel the late show’? No,” said Feld. “ But you don't have to be a genius to understand what you're being asked to do in order to get your deal through.”

For media observers like Christopher Terry, the recent actions of Chairman Brendan Carr are a bit different from what he’s used to.

“He's very much interested in using the FCC as more of a control mechanism. And that makes him a lot different. And we haven't had anybody like that at the commission since Alfred Sikes. So that's, you know, going back almost 40 years now,” Terry said.

There is also a worry that Carr’s actions are setting a dangerous precedent for future administrations, giving leave to target other broadcasters based on ideology.

“If we say, OK, well, Jimmy Kimmel's comments on ABC about Charlie Kirk and the MAGA movement is something that is, say, punishable. Well, then what's to stop the next administration, potentially a Democrat in the White House, from punishing organizations that are traditionally conservative, like Fox News and Newsmax,” Unger said.

While Kimmel is back on the air, the situation leaves many questions about the role and reach of regulatory power going forward.