Shutdown of ABS-CBN broadcasting
Controversy over the non-renewal of the congressional franchise of the Philippine broadcast network ABS-CBN
The shutdown of ABS-CBN broadcasting arose from the lack of renewal of Philippine media network ABS-CBN's congressional broadcast franchise. The disputes between the administrations of Presidents Benigno Aquino III and Rodrigo Duterte and the media company arose over the terms and conditions of the franchise renewal agreement. Amid the controversy, the Congress of the Philippines, the country's legislature, was unable to renew the franchise before its expiration date. The congressional franchise expired on May 4, 2020, while the Philippines was dealing with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the enhanced community quarantine in Luzon. The next day, exercising constitutional powers, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) issued a cease-and-desist order demanding ABS-CBN to stop the entire broadcast operations of all its free TV and radio stations immediately. ABS-CBN complied with the government order and shut down all of its radio stations and free television channels later that day. On June 30, 2020, the NTC released two alias cease-and-desist orders against ABS-CBN TV Plus and Sky Direct.
For most of the 2010s decade starting from July 28, 2012 up until the early 2020s on September 10, 2020 (during the presidencies of Benigno Aquino III and Rodrigo Duterte), the network had an eight-year controversy regarding the renewal of their broadcast franchise. In 2014, they applied the renewal through private bills that had been pending in the House of Representatives but had not been addressed by either the 16th, 17th, or 18th Congresses of the Philippines. Prominent figures in ABS-CBN Corporation, the political opposition in the Philippines, media advocacy groups, and the international press have attributed Congress's refusal to renew the franchise to Duterte's insistence that ABS-CBN cease broadcasting and labelled it a direct attack on the country's democracy and press freedoms, although sources from the previous administration reported that there was a lack of support for renewal because "Mr.
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