FCC’s Carr Warns YouTube TV About “Bias” Against Religious Networks

WASHINGTON—Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr has written the vMVPD YouTube TV saying that “concerns have been raised that your company has a policy (secret or otherwise) that discriminates against faith-based programming.”

In the letter Carr raised the issue in the context of an ongoing debate over whether vMPVDs like YouTube TV should be classified as pay TV operators, a move that would impose additional regulations on them.

To help with his consideration of those issues, Carr asked that the vMVPD “brief FCC staff on the rule of virtual MVPDs in the modern media marketplace and YouTube TV’s carriage negotiations process, including the potential role of viewpoint-based discrimination.”

Carr noted that the concerns about discrimination came from Great American Media. It “wrote a letter to me in which they claim that YouTube TV deliberately marginalizes faith-based and family-friendly content," Carr wrote. "Great American Media states that its Great American Family network is the second fastest-growth channel in cable television."

Their complaint alleged that even though “they are carried on a range of cable and streaming services, including Comcast, Cox, Hulu, FuboTV and DirecTV Stream, YouTube TV refuses to carry them," Carr wrote.

“Importantly, these allegations of faith-based discrimination come at a time when American public discourse has experienced an unprecedented surge in censorship” Carr wrote. That, he added, prompted him to write “to determine whether YouTube TV has a policy or practice that favors discrimination against faith-based channels.”

The letter was sent on March 7, 2025 to Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, the owner of YouTube TV and Neal Mohan, CEO of Google LLC dba YouTube.

In what appears to be an emerging pattern at the FCC, the letter was made public on X rather than being posted on the agency’s website.