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US Regulator Contacts The BBC 

The US broadcast regulator has written to the BBC over a Panorama episode that edited together parts of a 2021 speech by US President Donald Trump. 

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chief Brendan Carr wrote to the, external BBC's outgoing director general Tim Davie - and to top executives at public service broadcasters NPR and PBS, whose member stations air some BBC content. 

Carr said he wanted to determine if the BBC provided either the video or audio of the spliced speech to any broadcaster "regulated by the FCC for airing in the US". 

The BBC has previously stated it did not have the rights to, and did not, distribute the Panorama episode on its US channels. 

Trump has threatened to sue over the programme, saying it defamed him. The BBC has apologised, while refusing the president's demand for financial compensation. 

The broadcaster has acknowledged the edit gave "the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action" on the day of the riot at the US Capitol building on 6 January 2021. 

In Trump's speech in the Panorama episode, Trump: A Second Chance?, he said: "We're going to walk down to the Capitol, and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women." 

More than 50 minutes later in the speech, he said: "And we fight. We fight like hell." 

In the Panorama programme the clip shows him as saying: "We're going to walk down to the Capitol... and I'll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell." 

Of the edit, Carr wrote: "In doing so, the BBC programme depicts President Trump voicing a sentence that, in fact, he never uttered. That would appear to meet the very definition of publishing a materially false and damaging statement." 

The letter goes on to say: "As you may know, broadcasters regulated by the FCC have a legal obligation to operate in the public interest. Those public interest requirements include prohibitions on news distortion and broadcast hoax." 

Carr's letter also stated that he was "writing to determine whether any FCC regulations have been implicated by the BBC's misleading and deceptive conduct". 

The BBC has said it has nothing to add to its previous public statements. 

Source: BBC

21 November 2025

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