Justin's Entertainment Corner

Jeremy Barr at The Guardian:

In a historic vote on Thursday morning, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted along party lines to overturn a key check against the consolidation of the television industry, throwing out a rule that prevented any one company from owning stations that collectively reach more than 39% of all US TV households. The vote is a win for television conglomerates that aim to expand their reach across the country, particularly conservative-leaning companies like Sinclair Broadcast Group and Nexstar.

In a presentation endorsing the move, the FCC’s media bureau told commissioners on Thursday that the cap was no longer necessary in the current media environment, and that instead of promoting competition, it “constrains” local television networks from increasing their scale. The initiative was supported by the FCC chair, Brendan Carr, and Trump-appointed commissioner Olivia Trusty, who said she did not see it as a “silver bullet” to address all issues with competition – but viewed it as a meaningful step to help broadcasters. Carr argued that repealing the cap would serve to benefit local broadcasters, although large media conglomerates will most immediately benefit from the decision.

“The FCC has the authority to modify the cap as we did today, and it is the right policy answer [if] you care about the future of trusted local news,” he said. “It’s time to restore balance to the broadcast airwaves. Repealing the national cap will provide essential relief for local broadcasters by restoring a healthy counterbalance for the growing leverage and power of national programmers.” The 39% “national cap”, as it is called, came out of a 2003 compromise hammered out by congressional negotiators. Anna M Gomez, the lone Democrat on the FCC, voted against overturning the cap, an action she said was “unlawful” and would hurt local journalism.

“Today’s decision to eliminate the 39% national audience reach cap is unlawful on its face and a profound departure from both statutory boundaries and longstanding broadcast policy,” she said. “Congress set this cap in federal law, and only Congress can change it. I cannot support an action that so plainly violates the law and exceeds the Commission’s authority while simultaneously overlooking the real-world consequences for the public we serve.”

While the $6.2bn merger of mega-broadcasters Nexstar and Tegna is now on ice after a California judge issued a temporary injunction holding it up, the FCC in March granted a waiver of the ownership cap to approve the deal, arguing that the commission had the “authority” to do so. Nexstar, in particular, has seemed to take steps to stay in Carr’s good graces. Nexstar was one of two major owners of local television stations that acted quickly to pre-empt broadcasts of Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show after it drew Carr’s ire in September 2025.

[...] “The FCC has abandoned one of the last significant safeguards against excessive concentration of media ownership in the United States,” Weimers said. “Americans are already confronting the collapse of local news, rising political pressure on independent media and an increasingly toxic online information space. Rather than strengthening media pluralism, the FCC is accelerating its erosion.” Free Press said after the vote that the group and its “allies” would challenge the decision in court.

Kelby Vera at HuffPost:

TMZ founder Harvey Levin defended Dr. Anthony Fauci against a right-wing “witch hunt” after congressional Republicans grilled him about private diary entries from the COVID era that were leaked by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Monday. Opening his nearly five-minute statement saying he rarely uses TMZ to “vent personal feelings,” Levin told viewers, “Watching Anthony Fauci before a congressional hearing taking the Fifth Amendment is just one of the most heartbreaking things I have seen in government in my lifetime.” While Levin said he did have problems with the way that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “handled COVID,” he added that he didn’t think it was done “maliciously” but out of an abundance of caution. He went on to call Fauci, who served as the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022 before stepping into the role of chief medical adviser to the president in 2021, an “amazing public servant” for decades, noting how the work he did during the AIDS crisis of the late 80s and early 90s “really saved lives.” Taking Congress members to task for the “witch hunt,” Levin reminded watchers how Paul has publicly called for Fauci to be jailed for years now. Levin defended the doctor for pleading the Fifth, saying that no matter what Fauci said, Republicans would try to find a way to weaponize it.

TMZ’s Harvey Levin gave a riveting defense of Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Video:

Jeremy Barr at The Guardian:

ABC has pushed back aggressively against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for putting the network under an expedited license renewal process for eight local television stations it owns, charging in a lengthy filing that the process is payback for the network’s editorial decision-making and coverage of Donald Trump. “The retaliation against ABC is a signal to every media company in the country: Accommodate the administration’s view of what news coverage should look like or pay the price,” lawyers representing the Disney-owned network wrote in a 109-page filing, submitted as a reply to petitions from conservative media groups to deny ABC’s licenses. “The tools vary; the objective does not: a media industry too fearful of official reprisal to report the news freely.”

The FCC chair, Brendan Carr, has denied that inquiries into the network relate to its editorial decision-making and instead said they stem from concerns about the company’s employment practices and compliance with statutory obligations.

ABC’s lawyers pointed out how unusual it is for the FCC to demand that a group of network-owned stations apply several years early to renew their licenses. Other ABC-owned stations have licenses that run all the way until 2031.

“The commission’s departure from those norms lays bare what is really going on: the administration is retaliating against ABC for the exercise of its First Amendment rights,” ABC’s lawyers wrote. “Because this whole proceeding rests on an unconstitutional premise, the stations should never have been asked to justify license renewal years early.” Responding to petitions to deny ABC’s licenses based on accusations of liberal bias, the network’s lawyers pointed out that the “commission has no authority to regulate the content of television programming”. “No Petitioner has established any ‘violations’ of Commission rules or regulations, let alone the ‘serious’ ones or the ‘pattern of abuse’ required to warrant denying renewal,” they added.

Glad to see ABC fight for their broadcast licenses that are being threatened by the Trump Regime’s FCC.

See Also:

Ricky Cornish at Out:

Boy George is in hot water once again. After making headlines earlier this year for calling out Chappell Roan's run-in with the paparazzi, the Culture Club frontman is now receiving more backlash for releasing a controversial new song. George posted the new track, titled "Od Nirkod (We Will Dance Again)," with the caption "Shalom" to his X account. The reggae-style record serves as a reference to the Hamas attack on the Supernova Sukkot Gathering festival on October 7, which resulted in 378 deaths and led to Israel launching a military campaign in Gaza. If the name sounds familiar, that's because a 2024 documentary based on the attack has the same title.

The new record denies that a genocide is happening in Gaza with opening lyrics that say, "You say genocide / I say war / When you're attacked / That's what the army is for / Does it get ugly? / You bet it does / When I know you want to kill / Every last one of us..." According to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the United Nations, a genocide is very much happening in the Middle East. The UN even recently reported that "Israel had committed genocide against the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip, found that the intense scale and systematic nature of the Israeli military operations have continued, resulting in unprecedented death, injury and trauma of Palestinian children."

Brian Beutler at Off Message:

First, the right tried to “cancel” The Odyssey (film) for the sins of allowing a black woman (Lupita Nyong'o) to portray Helen of Troy, and casting a trans man (Elliot Page) in any role whatsoever. These reactionaries, led by Elon Musk, did not come out and say “we find these people disgusting,” but what else could they have meant? The movie hadn’t even been released yet! When their boycott method failed, and The Odyssey began setting box-office records, they retreated to more literary-sounding critiques. If they couldn’t cause the movie to flop, perhaps they could upend the critical consensus that the movie is good. They began complaining about the many ways director Christopher Nolan departed from the text of The Odyssey (book), as though it’s per se wrong to re-interpret old art. This rhetorical concession has brought us endless Odyssey Discourse™️, as mainline writers (most of whom have watched the right-wing freakout unfold on X) take questionable sparring partners up on a revised critique. With the bigotry now thinly concealed, good-faith debate may resume. A little pontificating is hard to resist from time to time, but this is a mistake. By treating instrumental ideas as if they’re analytically sincere (if a bit crude), they’re allowing improvisers to sniff out the sweet spot, where their exhausting crusade against modernity will get a fair hearing. So let’s go meta instead. A worthier task is to examine what this whole deranged discourse says about them. What kind of person experiences an allergic reaction to any art that doesn’t serve as a trick mirror, reflecting back to them whatever they believe they and the world should look like?

To make the claims they’ve fallen back on, and stick to them, you’d have to believe very childish things about human nature. At some level, you’d have to believe there is no human nature at all, apart from what culture forces upon people. You have to believe that frailty is a choice; that He-Man would be possible, if only the right people were in charge. Different haters have different nits to pick, but they’re all now upset about liberties Nolan took with the story (rather than with the gender and racial identities of his actors). Some of them characterize this as a preoccupation with “historical accuracy” (a complaint that conveniently allows them to smuggle the black-Helen freakout back into their critique) while others quibble more carefully: Nolan stripped the text of its intended cultural and moral lessons, and this is sacrilege.

[...] Part of the problem they perceive is that we—the culture—produce too much of the wrong type of propaganda. We valorize selfless heroes, but there will never be an acclaimed film or biography celebrating a marauder like Eddie Gallagher. Indeed, the modern right has less and less time these days for any cultural production that depicts the allies as the heroes of World War II. But it’s also weird and revealing to get mad about truer depictions. Their response, as if experiencing the effects of poison, is bizarre to witness. It’s indicative of contempt, and not just for nuance or authority or different kinds of people, but for themselves. That were it not for our acknowledgement of and concern for human frailty—particularly male frailty—rightists would not need to be haunted by their own torments or feelings of inadequacy. They would not feel under siege because they could lay waste, mightily and without consequence, to whomever or whatever they perceived as a challenge to their divine excellence.

If it weren’t for the wokes, I could be Conan the Barbarian! They direct their anger at Nolan and Nyong’o and Page, but their true beef is with reality. The human condition, and its durability across time and culture. The persistence of vulnerabilities and variabilities they'd prefer to deny. Until they can accept those things, discourse will be futile. PTSD wasn’t conjured into existence by psychiatrists intent on emasculating modern men. Men weren’t free from suffering until scholars identified common symptoms and triggers of trauma. Likewise, the coinage of the clinical term “transgender” did not cause people to become transgender. Gird your loins, Musk, but transgender people have always been with us. They were more real 3,000 years ago than Odysseus himself.

Could it be that the common language and consensus we’ve developed around conditions and identities we didn’t understand until recently drive what we might describe (in a collective sense) as “false positives”? People who, say, claim PTSD to explain different psychological symptoms, or even to pathologize what’s ultimately just flair for the dramatic? Absolutely. But people like that have always been with us, too. What it means to be human hasn’t changed, only how we regard the many manifestations of human existence. We don’t need to play along with child-minded chauvinists who’d drag us backward, to a time when it was easier to disown, sequester, or kill off the inconvenient ones.

Brian Steinberg at Variety:

Ross Douthat, the conservative New York Times columnist, will join CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” along with author Sebastian Junger, new CBS News correspondent Trevor Phillips and filmmaker Gianna Toboni, the Paramount Skydance news division announced Tuesday, a move that will remake the look and feel of the venerable newsmagazine at a time when it has been under intense scrutiny. Norah O’Donnell, a familiar face to CBS News viewers, will also take up more duties with the program, according to Nick Bilton, the series’ new executive producer, who offered details in a memo to staffers.

Douthat, Junger, Phillips and Toboni are “entrepreneurial journalists who understand how to reach modern audiences,” Bilton said. “Between them, they have written books and magazine articles, produced documentaries, TV shows and podcasts, hosted live events and built brands on independent platforms.” The question facing them now, of course, is can the new hires keep CBS viewers engaged during 12- to 13-minute-long video segments that air on broadcast TV?

The foursome are meant to replace a group of longtime correspondents who were ousted by Bari Weiss, the editor in chief of CBS News, in a bid to make the program more interesting for modern viewers. Weiss believes the program is in dire need of a shake-up and has to be made more relevant to digital audiences and younger viewers. In late May, she replaced Tanya Simon, the show’s previous executive producer, along with correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega and executive editor Draggan Mihailovich. Scott Pelley left soon after following a clash with Bilton. Anderson Cooper chose to leave the program earlier in the year, ostensibly because he has been wary of the direction CBS News has taken under Weiss, an opinion journalist who has often worked to get more time for Trump administration officials and provocative voices and experts.

CBS News injects the untested coterie into the program alongside three veterans: Lesley Stahl, Jon Wertheim and Bill Whitaker. All three opted to stay despite the way management gutted the program, seemingly with little regard for its recent accomplishments. In an era when more TV viewers are streaming away from old-school appointment television, “60 Minutes” in its most recent season saw overall viewers increase by 9%.

[...] If Bilton and Weiss can reinvigorate the remaining staff, broaden the “60 Minutes” portfolio and maintain the quality and ratings of the original TV program, they will have achieved quite a feat. Weiss is still trying to build a track record. Her overhaul of “CBS Evening News” has resulted in a choppy new era for the signature evening news program. Viewership for “CBS Mornings” has diminished and a series of hour-long newsmaker conversations called “Things That Matter” has proved too sporadic to gain true momentum.

Greg Owen at LGBTQ Nation:

GLAAD, the LGBTQ+ media advocacy organization, has analyzed public comments submitted to the FCC in response to the Trump administration’s push to flag the “promotion” of “controversial gender identity issues” on TV shows with warning labels. The comments reveal Americans overwhelmingly reject the idea. GLAAD submitted the findings to the FCC in a letter on the final day of comment on June 22. The analysis reveals “the American public is in strong opposition to the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) proposed review and expansion of the TV ratings system to put a warning label on programming that features LGBTQ families, including transgender and nonbinary characters,” Sarah Kate Ellis, President and CEO of the organization, said in the letter. 90% of comments support LGBTQ+ representation without government warning labels, GLAAD found.

The FCC was enlisted in Donald Trump’s anti-trans crusade in April, when the agency announced it was seeking an overhaul of the TV ratings system to add warning labels for LGBTQ+ content. “Parents have raised concerns that controversial gender identity issues are being included or promoted in children’s programs without providing any disclosure or transparency to parents,” the FCC said in its public notice. “Consistent with Congress’ vision for the ratings system, we seek comment on whether the industry’s approach is continuing to provide the information that is relevant to parents today,” the FCC’s announcement continued.

Gary Trust at Billboard:

Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” collects a 15th week at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 — surpassing two classic songs for yet more chart history. The single, which first hit No. 1 on the Hot 100 in February, one-ups 14-week leaders “We Belong Together” by Mariah Carey, from 2005, and “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston, in 1992-93, for the most weeks at No. 1 ever among non-holiday titles by women with no co-billed acts. Considering the seasonal qualifier, “Choosin’ Texas” trails only Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” for the longest Hot 100 command among songs by only women.

Sara Salinas at CNBC:

Paramount Skydance has agreed to delay its proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery to as late as June 2027 — a multi-month delay that will ultimately raise the deal price — as the tie-up faces a legal challenge. Last week, a group of state attorneys general led by California’s Rob Bonta sued to block the deal over antitrust concerns. On Monday, a judge reviewing the case issued a temporary restraining order, delivering a near-term delay. Paramount had repeatedly said it intended to complete the transaction by the end of September. The agreement announced Friday says Paramount won’t complete its acquisition until the court rules on the states’ claims or until June 1, 2027, whichever comes first. In a statement Friday, Paramount called the agreement a “significant win.”

“The result is exactly what we have sought from the outset: a direct path to a trial based on the evidence. This is the fastest and clearest way to prove that this transaction is good for competition, good for consumers, and good for creators, a conclusion dozens of competition authorities around the world have already reached,” the company said. “Plaintiffs’ market definitions bear no relationship to the realities of today’s marketplace and cannot withstand scrutiny. We look forward to proving our case at trial.” Shares of Paramount Skydance fell 3% in afternoon trading Friday.

Under the terms of its agreement, Paramount will owe Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders a “ticking fee” the longer the deal is delayed, starting Sept. 30. The fee, an additional 25 cents per share, per quarter until closing, could amount to roughly $650 million in cash value every quarter. A delay as long as June 2027 could add roughly $1.7 billion to the deal price. Should the deal fall apart entirely, Paramount would owe WBD a $7 billion breakup fee.

Tom Breihan at Stereogum:

Olivia Rodrigo, a real one, has been advocating for abortion rights since she first got famous. Rodrigo's Guts Tour, for instance, made sure to feature a number of different feminist organizations, including the National Network Of Abortion Funds, though they had to stop handing out Plan B pills at their table partway through the tour. Now, she's using the blockbuster moment of her you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love album release to draw attention to the many awful things currently happening with reproductive rights in America. Yesterday, Rodrigo appeared in a series of videos from the Center For Reproductive Rights, in which she talked about the state of abortion rights in America after the Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade. Rodrigo spoke to various staffers from the legal advocacy organization, including CEO Nancy Northup, as well as legal and policy experts Autumn Katz, Meetra Mehdizadeh, and Nimra Chowdhry.

This was mostly a chance for Rodrigo to platform the experts, though she gets in plenty of good lines herself. After Katz described the needless medical calamities that pregnant women face in states with abortion bans, for instance, Rodrigo said, "Not very pro-life to harm these women's health for the long term and see them in the ICU... That's pro-control." Real talk.

Pop singer Olivia Rodrigo spoke about the dangers of abortion bans in a series of videos with abortion rights organization Center For Reproductive Rights, in which she rightly calls abortion bans "pro-control."

She is a real one.

See Also:

Rolling Stone: Olivia Rodrigo Tackles Abortion Misinformation With Center for Reproductive Rights

Lisa Needham at Daily Kos:

Poor President Donald Trump. He loves filing lawsuits. So fun, so satisfying, so revenge-y! But he often seems to forget that real lawsuits require more than just filing a complaint and demanding a bribe to back down.  Why can’t he just sue the BBC for defamation, demand $10 billion and have them write him a check for $10 billion? Who needs all this “discovery” and “proof” anyway? In a very unfun—for Trump, that is—turn of events, the magistrate judge overseeing Trump’s lawsuit just ruled that yes, the BBC can subpoena Trump’s inner circle to talk about Jan. 6, and yes, they can get his financial records. 

See, actual lawsuits lead to actual discovery, where the plaintiff actually has to provide things that prove their allegations. To be fair, the cavalcade of U.S. media outlets buckling immediately after Trump sued perhaps gave him the false impression that a lawsuit is simply a demand for a bribe, which is promptly paid.  A couple of tiny problems there, just that Trump has to prove, in a defamation lawsuit, that the BBC acted with actual malice, showing that they knew their reporting was false or that they recklessly disregarded the truth.

[...] So, the court ruled that the BBC can subpoena some of Trump’s inner circle to ask about Trump’s state of mind on Jan. 6. Trump’s allegation is that the BBC defamed him by making it look like he was directing the mob to the Capitol and calling for violence, but how very dare they, because his heart is as pure as snow. But of course, if Trump really was intending to get his mob to wreak violence, then it isn’t defamation to say that at all, now is it? So, the BBC gets to chat with Trump officials and minions about his state of mind that day, much to his eternal chagrin.  [...]

But neither the BBC nor the court is just supposed to take Trump’s word for that. Proving damages requires coughing up financial data that shows you lost money, missed out on business deals, and the like.  Now, Brito is trying to walk back the damages claim, saying he only wants reputational damages and therefore no longer has to show that Trump’s companies were damaged to the tune of $10 billion. This also didn’t fly with the court, which said that Trump has to provide discovery based on the complaint Brito brought, not some future complaint he might bring. Trump can’t rely on his usual thuggery here. The BBC has no broadcast licenses in America that Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr can threaten. The BBC is not seeking government approval to merge with another giant company, approval that could only be achieved with a bribe. The BBC is a giant media company in another country and can afford to defend itself. 

Donald Trump once again chickens out of filing a lawsuit, likely because discovery would find about his financial shadiness.

Ed Mazza at HuffPost:

Longtime Journey keyboardist Jonathan Cain said rock icon Bruce Springsteen should keep his politics out of his act. “Guys like Bruce Springsteen should shut up, you know,” Cain, an outspoken conservative, told The Complete Disaster Network podcast. “Honestly, shut up, Bruce.” [...] “Bruce, I mean, what the heck? I used to like him, and now he’s just annoying,” he told the podcast. “He’s an annoying, bitter old man. I mean, stop it.”

[...] But Cain said that’s different from what Springsteen does because he keeps his politics out of his shows. “Now, people say, ‘Well, you’re Christian, and you’re conservative,’” Cain said. “And I’m like, ‘So what?’ I don’t preach it on stage. I don’t spend 10 minutes talking about it.”

[...] During the interview, Cain also slammed Springsteen over one of his biggest hits. “You know, you were ‘Born in the USA,’ weren’t you, dude? So act like it,” he said. “But even that song, if you look at the lyrics, I mean, it’s a kind of a diss to our country.” The song deals with the mistreatment of Vietnam veterans after they returned home from the war. However, it’s often misunderstood to be a jingoistic anthem and politicians, including Trump, have routinely played it at rallies and other events.

[...] He’s repeatedly flipped out at the rock legend on social media, calling him “a pushy, obnoxious JERK” and “dried out ‘prune,’” among other things, and ― like Cain ― saying Springsteen should “KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT.”

Journey keyboardist Jonathan Cain is a out-of-touch sanctimonious fool-- not surprising, considering he’s married to MAGA high priestess Paula White-Cain.

From the 05.15.2026 edition of The Complete Disaster Network's Tom Barnard Podcast:

Lillian Rizzo at CNBC:

Paramount Skydance’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery hit its first official roadblock when a judge granted a temporary restraining order on the merger as part of a lawsuit brought by state attorneys general. California District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín signed off on the order Monday after hearing arguments from both sides in an Oakland courtroom on Friday. The order puts a 14-day pause on anything moving forward with the merger. Last week, a group of state attorneys general led by California’s Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit seeking to block the $110 billion acquisition due to antitrust concerns. The proposed deal would unite the storied film studios of Paramount and Warner Bros, the CBS broadcast network, a sprawling portfolio of pay TV networks that includes CNN, TNT, MTV and BET, and streaming services Paramount+ and HBO Max, under one roof. In a statement Monday, a Paramount spokesperson said the company is “confident the evidence will demonstrate that the State AGs’ antitrust arguments are without merit as their alleged markets and claims of anticompetitive effects are without any basis in modern market realities.”   “This merger is lawful, pro-competitive, and will benefit consumers, creators, workers, and the entertainment industry. We will continue to vigorously defend the transaction and will look forward to the hearings on the substance of the State AGs’ action,” according to the statement.

Warner Bros. declined to comment. The lawsuit said the proposed deal would violate the Clayton Antitrust Act — a more than 100-year-old law that prohibits anticompetitive mergers and acquisitions. The lawsuit was brought by a group of states that also includes Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Washington. In Monday’s order, Martínez-Olguín said the coalition of state attorneys general presented “compelling evidence that the combined firm resulting from the transaction will possess substantial market share in the wide-release theatrical distribution market.”

[...] The Paramount-WBD transaction has been under review by the European Union and the U.K., which provided a new provisional deadline of July 22. The Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice signed off on the tie-up in June, clearing it of federal concerns. It has also won approval from several global jurisdictions. Paramount has said it’s on track to close the deal by the end of September. If the transaction were to be delayed beyond then, Paramount could face additional costs, namely a so-called ticking fee that kicks in if it’s not closed after Sept. 30. The fee would be an additional 25 cents paid to WBD shareholders per quarter until closing — which would equal about $650 million in cash value per quarter. Paramount also agreed to a $7 billion breakup fee if the deal doesn’t move forward due to regulatory concerns.

Good news: the disastrous Paramount/Warner Bros. Discovery merger has hit a temporary snag, thanks to Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín granting the TRO.

See Also:

AP, via The Guardian: Judge orders pause on Paramount-Warner merger after challenge from 12 states

Dustin Rowles at Pajiba:

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has been needling ABC and The View practically since the day he was installed. Things got white-hot when he helped pressure ABC into briefly suspending Jimmy Kimmel, a move that detonated into massive bipartisan backlash and ultimately made both Carr and the President look small. They haven’t forgotten it. For months, Carr has been threatening to strip The View of its status as a “bona fide news” program — a classification the show has held since its inception in 2002. That label exempts the show from equal-time rules, meaning it can invite political guests on without having to hand equal airtime to those guests’ opponents. Lose it, and every candidate who asks could demand a chair.

The threat is already working. Since Carr launched his investigation last February, The View has all but stopped booking political candidates in competitive races — no one running in a midterm campaign. Equal-time rules don’t apply to politicians who aren’t in contested races, so it hasn’t shut the door on political guests entirely; JD Vance and Cory Booker, for instance, have both appeared. But the chill is unmistakable, and that’s rather the point of a chill: it does its work before anyone issues a ruling.

Now the ruling is coming. Bloomberg reports that the FCC is close to acting, and that it’s likely to rule against The View and, separately, against eight ABC-owned stations — most of them in large markets like New York. That second investigation concerns an entirely different matter: the Administration is threatening to yank the FCC licenses for those eight stations over their DEI practices.

Lillian Rizzo at CNBC:

A group of 12 state attorneys general filed a lawsuit Monday challenging Paramount Skydance’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. The lawsuit, which came after weeks of speculation on if and when it would be filed, seeks to block the merger for antitrust concerns. CNBC’s David Faber reported earlier in the day that the lawsuit was expected to come on Monday. The merger deal would combine two storied film studios — Paramount and Warner Bros. — as well as streaming platforms Paramount+ and HBO Max. Paramount CEO David Ellison has previously said the streaming services would become one following the transaction. It would also mean the formation of the largest portfolio of TV networks in the U.S., bringing together Paramount’s broadcast network CBS and pay TV channels like MTV and BET with WBD’s CNN, TNT and others. Led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, the lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District for the Northern District of California, is also brought forth by attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Washington.

[...] Paramount could face additional costs if closing the deal were to be delayed. As part of the proposed merger, Paramount has has agreed to pay a so-called ticking fee, which kicks in if the closing goes past Sept. 30. Paramount set the fee at an additional 25 cents paid to WBD shareholders per quarter until closing. The fee would equal about $650 million in cash value per quarter for every quarter the deal is not closed.

12 states, led by California, are leading a lawsuit against the Paramount Skydance behemoth’s takeover of WBD.

See Also:

Reuters, via HuffPost: California, 11 States Suing To Block Paramount's $110 Billion Warner Bros. Deal

Elyse Wanshel at HuffPost:

Jack White thinks flying the flag during a pretty depressing time in American history is actually pretty cool — especially if you’re not a fan of President Donald Trump. [...] “I leave you with a reminder: MAGA doesn’t own our flag and never will,” White wrote at the tail end of his post. “And definitely not on this anniversary of a nation currently in peril that was founded on the indelible human right, duty, and endeavor to fight against tyranny and the current tyrant we suffer under today.” Despite the diss to Trump, the Grammy-winner reserved the majority of his post to highlighting the aspects of American life that make him proud to be a citizen.

“Happy 250th to America! And even more importantly the concept that America is a possibility, a promise of an attainable ideal, all things achievable in the pursuit of happiness and true freedom,” White wrote. He continued, “I believe in the rock and roll band in the garage, the protest in town square, the drive in theater, the workers on the way to the car plant, the melting pot and the integration of faiths, Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly.”

The “Seven Nation Army” singer went on to mention other slices of Americana that he loves. “Thanksgiving dinner, the soup kitchen feeding the homeless, the sunrise in the Grand Canyon and the building and climbing of the tallest sky scrapers.” White’s argument about the American flag is a resonant one, considering many on the left feel like the flag has become MAGA-coded under the Trump administration.

Alex Weprin at THR:

ABC is going to bat for The View. With the Federal Communications Commission, led by chairman Brendan Carr, targeting the daytime panel show as not being a “bona fide” news program and thus not exempt from FCC rules around equal opportunity, the network is firing back, citing the show’s long history of newsmaking interviews and FCC precedent to make its case in support of the program. The Disney-owned broadcast network has filed new comments in the matter, telling the FCC that “these Reply Comments arise from an unusual posture.”

"ABC did not come to the Federal Communications Commission asking for anything,” the network continued. “The Commission compelled ABC to file the Petition for Declaratory Ruling at issue here, directing the network to explain why the government should not dictate which political candidates may appear on The View—even though the Commission itself resolved that very question in ABC’s favor more than two decades ago, ruling in 2002 that The View is a bona fide news program not subject to the equal opportunities requirement.” What followed is a thorough defense of the show, centered on the program’s core free speech rights to determine who to interview and when. And ABC cites the more than 76,000 comments that have been submitted to the FCC since it opened the case, overwhelmingly in support of the show.

[...] The FCC earlier this year proposed changes to the types of shows that it believes are “bona fide” news programs, specifically calling out daytime and late night talk shows. Bona fide news shows are exempt from FCC equal time rules, but when The View hosted Texas Senate hopeful James Talarico earlier this year, the FCC argued that it ran afoul of the rule, opening an investigation. ABC notes that the rules should, logically, also apply to talk radio. “What has changed is not the program but the political climate around it,” ABC writes in its filing. “The Commission has trained its attention on daytime and late-night television—programs perceived as unfriendly to the current administration—while leaving untouched the vast landscape of talk radio, where candidates routinely appear without their opponents. A rule pressed against one set of speakers and quietly suspended for another, along lines that track the administration’s political preferences, is not evenhanded regulation. The record here reflects a widespread and well-founded concern that it is not.”

The FCC’s effort already seems to be having a chilling effect: THR reported in March that political bookings have slowed to a trickle ever since the Commission announced its investigation.