Broadcast TV Is a ‘Melting Ice Cube.’ Kimmel Just Turned Up the Heat

Jimmy Kimmel returned in ABC this week. Sort of. About a quarter of the usual audience of ABC could not see the host of talk show this week after two main owners of ABC affiliated, Sinclair and Nexstar, refused to wear the show. These right -wing companies apparently considered that Kimmel’s joke – which included disputed facts – was so unforgivable that they could not exhibit their viewers to the actor. They were also the first organizations to get rid of Kimmel, after the president of the Federal Communications Commission Brendan Carr seemed to threaten the action. This means that even the stations that have worn the show – as well as Disney, which has ABC – can wrash the government’s anger who seems eager to use its powers to silence critics.

Carr has power. The FCC can grant and revoke dissemination licenses if the stations do not serve public interests. It is an artifact of an era when almost 100% of viewers have obtained their air shows, via television antennas. Local television stations have obtained very limited distribution spectrum slices to radiate their programs and had to meet certain standards to maintain this privilege. But this era has passed. Local television stations now reach their audience by cable or internet. In addition, networks are increasingly broadcasting their programming via applications. However, Carr still has the ability to intimidate networks and affiliates by threatening to take their licenses.

This raises a question: what is the point of maintaining the current system? It is certainly a waste for Disney and its colleagues owners of networks like Comcast, which owns NBC, and Paramount, which owns CBS. Instead of tackling the regulators of hate free-discours and the toad affiliates who agree to censor ABC programming, perhaps Disney should say goodbye to the stations that refuse to execute its programming. Disney is already broadcasting programs on Hulu (which he controls) and on his own application. There have been a long time examples of local stations held and operated by networks. What if Disney or Comcast allowed contracts with annoying affiliates who launched and then started their own local stations without using Spectrum, both as applications and cable channels? Let Nexstar and Sinclair find their own programming, where they can adapt the content to any standard they want. Disney can gladly get around the waves without worrying about FCC threats. They can even say these seven dirty words!

I led this idea before a former FCC commissioner, who underlined certain potential problems involving existing and other contracts. But generally, he agreed that the idea not only had meaning but was Already in motionon the largest scale. “This is what Disney does by spreading ESPN and everything else. This is something that must come, ”he said, speaking under the guise of anonymity. Blair Levin, the former chief of staff of an FCC president, was even more sympathetic to my idea. “Diffusion is an icing thoroughly,” he says. This is only a question of the duration of the defrosting. Five years? Ten?

So my idea is less new than I thought. Kimmel’s enigma only set up the heat on a piece condemned of frozen water. Even if I was chatting with the former FCC officials, Needham, an investment bank following the media, published a note that suggests even more drastic action is justified. Disney, he said, should immediately start spreading all its schedule! The money he would collect from advertisements or subscriptions would compensate more than losses, and Disney market capitalization would increase.

I don’t expect it to happen right away. Multi -year contracts and continuous relationships between affiliates and networks lock the current situation for a while. But when I asked a business manager who has television channels if the current arrangement was durable, I did not get the hindsight that I expected. “This is a real question,” he said, admitting that the recently relationship has become heavier.