The US media regulator has ordered an early review of Disney’s broadcast TV licences amid White House criticism of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s joke about Melania Trump.

The standoff between President Donald Trump’s administration and the global entertainment conglomerate is the first crisis facing ‌Walt Disney’s new CEO Josh D’Amaro.

Unlike the last battle with Kimmel that centred on free speech, this time the Federal Communications Commission is targeting Disney’s track record of diversity and inclusion practices, according to the order. The review names eight ‌US ABC stations owned by Disney.

Disney has until May 28 to respond.

The FCC has not revoked a broadcast licence in more than four decades. Any effort to do so would typically be a lengthy process that requires a hearing in front of a career administrative law judge.

The review comes after Kimmel did a send-up of the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on his ABC show last Thursday, joking that US first lady Melania Trump had “a glow like an expectant widow.”

The joke came three days before the actual black-tie dinner, celebrating press freedom and free speech, in Washington. Trump and his wife were rushed from the ‌event following a shooting that has been labelled an assassination ‌attempt.

Disney said it had received the ⁠FCC order. It said it had “a long record of operating in full compliance with FCC rules and serving their local communities with trusted news, ​emergency information, and public-interest programming”.

The company said it was “prepared to show that through the appropriate legal channels.”

The stations named in the review are in Fresno, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Philadelphia, Houston and Durham, North Carolina.

On Monday, the Trumps called for ABC to fire Kimmel, the latest incident of the White House pushing back on free speech that has roiled the world of late-night comedy and the press.

On Truth Social, Trump said Kimmel was “in no way funny” and had “terrible Television Ratings”. He said the joke about Melania becoming a widow was “really shocking”.

“A day later a lunatic tried entering the ballroom of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, loaded up with a shotgun, handgun, and many knives,” Trump wrote.

Melania Trump, meanwhile, in a rare intervention posted to X.

“Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country,” she wrote.

“His monologue about my family isn’t comedy — his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America.

“People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate.”

An apparently unrepentant Kimmel hit back during his monologue on Tuesday night’s show. He played some of Trump’s speech welcoming the King to the US, in which Trump spoke about his own mother and her 63-year marriage to his father.

“Uh excuse me if you don’t mind,” Trump, 79, said as he turned to his 56-year-old wife on the podium next to him.

“That’s a record we won’t be able to match, darling. I’m sorry. Just not going to work out that way.”

An apparently dumfounded Kimmel said:

“Wait a minute. Did he just make a joke about his death? My god. You should be fired for that.

“Only Donald Trump would demand I be fired for making a joke about his old age and then a day later go out and make a joke about his own old age.”

The Committee for the First Amendment, a free speech advocacy group led by acting legend Jane Fonda has defended Kimmel, saying “satire is not a crime”.

Actor and prominent Democrat George Clooney said both sides of politics needed to realise when a joke was a joke.

A ​Disney spokesman could not be reached for comment about Kimmel, who survived a previous call for ABC ‌to fire him.

-with AAP