Zach Wahls

Well, I mean, yeah, it's a real threat insofar as Disney's going to have to comply.

The FCC can do this, right?

It's difficult.

It's an unusual process, but they can absolutely do this.

And they can make life expensive and challenging for people

Disney and its affiliates as they seek to gum up the works and throw sand in the machinery.

And it is, I think, an escalatory move from the last time the FCC took on ABC and Jimmy Kimmel, which was just to pull them off the air.

And I don't think it's a good development in terms of our democracy and the First Amendment and the freedom of the press and freedom of speech.

So, I mean, I think it's definitely problematic.

I think

Though this time is a little bit different.

First of all, Disney, I think, learned its lesson when everybody, a lot of people who are Disney Plus subscribers started canceling their subscriptions, outraged over Disney.

pulling Kimmel off the air for a week or however long it was.

And I think also these networks are understanding that if you allow an administration to terrorize you based on a whatever joke said on one of your broadcast networks, that is both the end of television and comedy.

And neither of those things is good for business if you're a broadcast network or an entertainment network.

So I think there's more, I would hope there's more fight in Disney's belly this time around.

And I think an early indicator of the changed dynamics is the posture of the National Association of Broadcasters, which released a statement on, I think it was Wednesday, saying effectively what the FCC is doing here is bad.

And if it wants to do this to Disney, ABC, then we're all, you know, that equally affects us.

So, you know, an opening salvo against Disney is an opening salvo against all of us, which I think is, you know, it's a hopeful sign that corporate America has learned some lessons since 2025 when everybody was taking the knee to Donald Trump and his winged monkeys as they sought to terrorize them and encourage them to be, you know, pledge allegiance to Disney.

Donald Trump.