{"id":372435,"date":"2026-06-24T03:04:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T03:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/372435\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T03:04:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T03:04:13","slug":"why-is-abc30-asking-viewers-to-write-the-fcc-inside-the-fresno-stations-plea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/372435\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is ABC30 asking viewers to write the FCC? Inside the Fresno station\u2019s plea"},"content":{"rendered":"

ABC30 has been a part of Fresno\u2019s television landscape for 70 years.<\/a><\/p>\n

That status is now under attack, according to a campaign the station launched Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe FCC is questioning our commitment to viewers by threatening to take us off the air,\u201d the station wrote in a post encouraging viewers to contact the federal agency<\/a> that oversees the television industry (along with radio, cable and satellite communications).<\/p>\n

\u201cUse your voice and tell the FCC that Fresno deserves to keep its trusted local station KFSN.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post includes a link where viewers can leave a comment<\/a> with the Federal Communications Commission.<\/p>\n

At stake is the station\u2019s broadcasting license, which was put under review in April and then officially filed last month. A comment period is open through July 29.<\/p>\n

The FCC called for an early review<\/a> of all Disney\u2018s broadcast TV licenses, including ABC\u2019s eight owned-and-operated stations: in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, San Francisco, Raleigh-Durham and Fresno.<\/p>\n

It was seen as escalation in the conflict between the FCC and ABC\u2019s parent company, Disney, and came after ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel had a public dust-up with President Donald Trump<\/a> in which the president demanded the host to be fired.<\/p>\n

That timing was noted in a court filing<\/a> from the network\u2019s flagship station in May, which called the request for the early reviews \u201cunlawful, arbitrary, and unconstitutional.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Commission had not demanded early renewal in over five decades,\u201d it wrote. \u201cAnd it has never before demanded simultaneous license renewal applications from a group of stations commonly owned with a network as it has here.\u201d<\/p>\n

FCC and \u2018The View\u2019<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the only fight the broadcast company has with the FCC currently.<\/p>\n

Also under scrutiny is the network\u2019s day-time talk show \u201cThe View,\u201d which the FCC began investigating in November following an appearance by Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico. The agency alleged possible violations of the equal-time rule for political candidates.<\/p>\n

ABC argues the show is a \u201cbona fide news interview program,\u201d and exempt from the rule. On Monday, it launched a separate on-air campaign<\/a> in support of the show. \u201cThe View has welcomed your favorite guests for nearly 30 years,\u201d ABC said in a commercial airing as part of the campaign. \u201cNow the FCC wants to control who is allowed to appear on the show. Tell the FCC to let the viewers decide.\u201d Viewers have until July 6 to reply to the FCC.<\/a><\/p>\n

This kind of direct, mass appeal to viewers isn\u2019t unusual.<\/p>\n

Local stations have long used their platforms to call out the opposition in contract disputes with service providers. See: DirecTV\u2019s standoff with Sinclair<\/a> (and Nextstar) stations in 2019. In 2018, Sinclair used its affiliate stations and anchors (including those at KMPH) in a campaign to shame so-called \u201cfake news\u201d.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ABC30 has been a part of Fresno\u2019s television landscape for 70 years. That status is now under attack,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[11105,112,114,113],"class_list":["post-372435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fcc","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}