NBC and CNN stayed away from White House speech, while Fox News, MS Now, CBS and some ABC affiliates aired it

The US’s largest television stations split on whether to air Donald Trump’s White House address live on Thursday night, which was heavy on unproven accusations about the integrity of the 2020 election won by Joe Biden.

While CNN, ABC and NBC chose not to air the speech live, CBS, Fox News and MS Now (formerly MSNBC) aired at least large portions of the speech live. ABC did not air the speech as a must-run broadcast, but some station affiliates – including the Washington DC station owned by right-leaning broadcaster Sinclair – chose to air the speech.

Prominent organizations accuse network of political, racial and sexual bias and supporting Chinese communist party

A group of prominent conservative organizations has petitioned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to deny license renewal requests from the eight local television stations owned and operated by ABC, accusing the network of political, racial and sexual bias and supporting the Chinese communist party.

The petitions come after the commission, led by Trump appointee Brendan Carr, took the nearly unprecedented step of requiring the network, a frequent recipient of attacks from Donald Trump, to apply several years early to maintain its ability to broadcast in markets around the country.