Jimmy Kimmel was canceled. Although only briefly “censored” by Disney (or allegedly by the President himself?), the late night host was taken off the air over factually incorrect, incendiary comments regarding Charlie Kirk’s assassination. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr was accused of “jawboning” Disney into cancelling Kimmel after his remarks on the Benny Johnson podcast, and since then, he’s been scrutinized by both left-wing defenders of the comedian and right-wing small government advocates alike.

Kimmel was only canceled for six days. The real story here is less about free speech than the complexity of America’s communications law, and the bureaucracy surrounding our 80-plus-year-old public national broadcast networks.

The federal government controls access to our broadcast TV airwaves. Since 1941, the FCC has licensed some of those airwaves to traditional broadcast networks. Unlike cable and streaming platforms, these networks are subject to federal law mandating they air content in the “public interest,” in addition to the corporate decisions of their parent companies — Disney for ABC, Paramount for CBS, and Comcast for NBC. (This “public interest” mandate was behind Carr’s comments.)

But public television is extremely outdated. Most Americans use social media, streaming platforms, and the internet to get their news now. It’s been 84 years since we launched government-controlled TV stations; technology has accelerated, and the world is different. We need something new.