#equal time rule

Ed Mazza at HuffPost:

“Late Show” host Stephen Colbert tore into his future former employer on Monday night as he accused CBS of caving to Federal Communications Commission threats by spiking his interview with Texas state Rep. and U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico (D). “He was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers ― who called us directly ― that we could not have him on the broadcast,” Colbert said. Colbert’s audience booed the news. “Then I was told, in some uncertain terms, that not only could I not have him on, I could not mention me not having him on,” Colbert added. “And because my network clearly doesn’t want us to talk about this, let’s talk about this.”

Colbert recapped how FCC Chair Brendan Carr is threatening to enforce equal time regulations for TV talk shows, which have long been exempt. “Well, sir, you’re chairman of the FCC,” Colbert said. “So, FCC you!” If the FCC moves forward with the plan, TV talk shows would not be allowed to interview political candidates unless they offer equal time to every candidate in the same race.

Carr’s proposal, Colbert noted, does not apply to right-wing talk radio, despite the fact that the FCC also regulates radio. “Let’s just call this what it is: Donald Trump’s administration wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV because all Trump does is watch TV,” Colbert said. “He’s like a toddler with too much screen time. He gets cranky and then drops a load in his diapers.” Then, Colbert directed his ire toward CBS. “Now, as I said, at this point, he’s just released a letter that says he’s thinking about doing away with the exception for late night,” Colbert said. “He hasn’t done away with it yet, but my network is unilaterally enforcing it as if he had ... but I want to assure you, this decision is for purely financial reasons.”

[...] Colbert did ultimately interview Talarico on Monday and posted the conversation on his YouTube channel. Colbert said CBS would not allow him to mention the URL of that channel or provide a QR code on-screen with a direct link.

Stephen Colbert tore into CBS for booting the interview of Texas Senate candidate James Talarico (D) off its linear feed of The Late Show.

Dear CBS and the FCC, you may have just given Talarico the nomination and possibly a general election victory.

From the 02.16.2026 edition of CBS's The Late Show With Stephen Colbert:

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Igor Bobic at HuffPost:

AUSTIN, Texas ― U.S. Senate candidate and Texas State Rep. James Talarico (D) said the Federal Communications Commission “colluded” with CBS executives to keep his interview with “The Late Show” host Stephen Colbert off the air this week. “I think it’s safe to say that their plan backfired,” Talarico told hundreds of supporters at a rally in Austin on Tuesday. “These are the same people who ran against cancel culture, and now they’re trying to control what we watch, what we say, what we read. And this is the most dangerous kind of cancel culture, the kind that comes from the top.” “They went after Jimmy Kimmel for telling a joke they didn’t like,” he added. “They went after Stephen Colbert for telling the truth about Paramount’s bribe to Donald Trump. Corporate media executives are selling out the First Amendment to curry favor with corrupt politicians.” Colbert tore into his employer on Monday night, accusing the network of caving to threats from the Federal Communications Commission by spiking his interview with Talarico. “He was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers ― who called us directly ― that we could not have him on the broadcast,” Colbert said on Monday.

The explosive accusation comes as the Trump administration is already facing widespread bipartisan criticism for abusing its authorities in order to stifle dissent, including from comedians Trump has often complained about, like Colbert and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel. CBS denied Colbert’s accusation on Tuesday, maintaining he “was not prohibited by CBS” from broadcasting the interview, which later aired on YouTube.

James Talarico is right to say that the FCC colluded with CBS to keep his interview with Stephen Colbert off the linear feed of the network.

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Popular Information (Judd Legum, Rebecca Crosby, and Noel Sims): CBS censors Colbert, bowing to pressure from Trump’s FCC

Public Notice (Liz Dye): CBS obeys in advance

Today’s call in “Trump Is The Stupidest Man in DC” Bingo

This just in: The President of the United States doesn’t know how the equal time rule works. Unless he thinks it’s already 2020 and Seth Meyers is running against him.

He could be thinking of the Fairness Doctrine, which hasn’t existed since 1987. Yeah, dude, bring that one back. I promise the left won’t use it to take over half of the Fox News schedule every single day. Pinky swear.

John Hendel at Politico:

President Donald Trump’s top television regulator warned late-night and daytime hosts that they need to give political candidates equal time when booking guests — a move that brought renewed objections that the administration is treading on free speech. Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr issued regulatory guidance Wednesday directing broadcasters to provide political candidates with equal time on morning and late-night shows, specifically dinging programs “motivated by partisan purposes.” Carr singled out “The View” last fall as a particular concern when teasing such a requirement. His comments followed high-profile threats to broadcasters airing Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show on ABC. On the eve of the 2024 election, Carr also criticized “Saturday Night Live” for alleged evasion of the equal time rule when it featured then-Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris — prompting NBC to give Trump air time on NASCAR and NFL events.

“For years, legacy TV networks assumed that their late night & daytime talk shows qualify as ‘bona fide news’ programs — even when motivated by purely partisan political purposes,” Carr wrote in an X post Wednesday. “Today, the FCC reminded them of their obligation to provide all candidates with equal opportunities.” President Donald Trump also waded into the change on Wednesday, sharing a headline on Truth Social warning the FCC was going after “The View” and Jimmy Kimmel using the equal time rule. Carr shared the post on his X feed. Daniel Suhr, a conservative lawyer who heads the Center for American Rights and has been largely aligned with Carr’s agenda, cheered the move and suggested it could affect hosts such as Stephen Colbert and Kimmel.

Censor-happy FCC “Chair” Brendan Carr issues a warning to late-night and daytime talk shows: either show more pro-Trump voices or face crackdowns.

This is yet another attempt by the Trump Regime to control speech on TV.

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FCC Chair Brendan Carr announces a politically-motivated investigation into ABC's The View over 'serious questions' about its alleged "news value"

Brenton Blanchet at People:

Brendan Carr is shedding some light on the FCC's ongoing "investigation" into The View. The Trump administration's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chair said in a Tuesday, April 28 interview on The Katie Miller Podcast that the FCC has "raised serious questions" with the long-running ABC talk show. Carr previously announced in February that the agency was exploring “an enforcement action" against the show after it welcomed James Talarico, a Democratic candidate for Senate in Texas, as a guest. The View had reportedly been under investigation for potentially violating the FCC's Equal Time Rule, a restriction that forced broadcasters to provide commensurate airtime to opposing candidates, if requested.

"They are asserting that The View is what the statute calls a 'bona fide' news program. And if you're a bona fide news program under the law, you actually don't have to comply with equal time requirements," said Carr, 47. "They're asserting that they're bona fide news just like, I don’t know, Meet The Press used to be, or something like that. There's obviously questions have been raised about whether they are, in fact, bona fide news." He added, "We've asked them to file a petition at the FCC to try to get some clarification on that. And we'll see where that goes... I think there's a lot of questions have been raised." [...] A network source told PEOPLE in February that the panel show regularly hosts sitting leaders and political candidates from across the political spectrum to discuss current events, which is consistent with how The View has operated for years.

On Tuesday’s edition of The Katie Miller Podcast, terrorist-coddling FCC Chair Brendan Carr announced he is conducting a politically-motivated “investigation” into ABC’s The View over its “news value.”

From the 04.28.2026 edition of The Katie Miller Podcast:

Dustin Rowles at Pajiba:

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has been needling ABC and The View practically since the day he was installed. Things got white-hot when he helped pressure ABC into briefly suspending Jimmy Kimmel, a move that detonated into massive bipartisan backlash and ultimately made both Carr and the President look small. They haven’t forgotten it. For months, Carr has been threatening to strip The View of its status as a “bona fide news” program — a classification the show has held since its inception in 2002. That label exempts the show from equal-time rules, meaning it can invite political guests on without having to hand equal airtime to those guests’ opponents. Lose it, and every candidate who asks could demand a chair.

The threat is already working. Since Carr launched his investigation last February, The View has all but stopped booking political candidates in competitive races — no one running in a midterm campaign. Equal-time rules don’t apply to politicians who aren’t in contested races, so it hasn’t shut the door on political guests entirely; JD Vance and Cory Booker, for instance, have both appeared. But the chill is unmistakable, and that’s rather the point of a chill: it does its work before anyone issues a ruling.

Now the ruling is coming. Bloomberg reports that the FCC is close to acting, and that it’s likely to rule against The View and, separately, against eight ABC-owned stations — most of them in large markets like New York. That second investigation concerns an entirely different matter: the Administration is threatening to yank the FCC licenses for those eight stations over their DEI practices.

John Hendel at Politico:

Disney’s ABC lambasted the Federal Communications Commission’s newfound efforts to regulate interviews on broadcast talk shows, warning that Chair Brendan Carr’s “unprecedented” actions threaten to “chill” the First Amendment and stifle coverage of political candidates. The regulatory filing marked the latest stage in a confrontation between the broadcasting networks and Carr, who has used his tenure atop the nominally independent FCC to wage a series of fights against perceived foes of President Donald Trump. In this case, the dispute involves Carr’s efforts to wield a decades-old “equal time” rule to demand that broadcast talk shows such as ABC’s “The View” offer equal time to both parties when interviewing political candidates. Such shows had previously relied on the FCC’s exemption for what it calls “bona fide” news interviews — but now, their ability to air those interviews is in doubt, ABC wrote.

“Uncertainty as to the scope of broadcast licensees’ editorial discretion threatens to limit news coverage of political candidates and chill core First Amendment-protected speech for years and potentially decades to come,” ABC wrote in the 52-page petition to the agency, unveiled Friday. “As the 2026 midterm election approaches, the American people need more access to political news and more exposure to political candidates, not less.”

An FCC spokesperson defended Carr’s approach and but told POLITICO that the agency would review ABC’s arguments that “The View” should be exempt from the equal time rules. “Decades ago, Congress passed a law that generally prohibits broadcast television programs from putting a thumb on the scale in favor of one political candidate over another,” said the spokesperson, who was granted anonymity in keeping with commission practice. “Specifically, Congress put protections in place to ensure that covered programs offer legally qualified candidates for office (both Republican and Democrat) equal time on the public airwaves. The equal time law encourages more speech and empowers voters to decide the outcome of elections.”

[...] In its petition, ABC requested that the FCC honor its “bona fide news” exemption for “The View” and warned that the “Commission’s actions threaten to upend decades of settled law and practice and chill critical protected speech, both with respect to The View and more broadly.”

Ryan Grenoble and Sebastian Murdock at HuffPost:

Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr on Wednesday denied the government censored CBS “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert after the network forbid him from airing an interview with a U.S. Senate candidate earlier this week. “There was no censorship here at all,” Carr told reporters. Instead of censorship, Carr blamed Texas state Rep. James Talarico (D) of committing a “hoax” related to CBS not airing his interview. “You had a Democrat candidate who understood the way the news media works and he took advantage of all of your, sort of, prior conceptions, to run a hoax, apparently for the purpose of raising money and getting clicks,” Carr claimed. “And the news media played right into it.” The “hoax” claim doesn’t appear to be factually supported, however: Colbert first brought up the censorship to his audience Monday, not Talarico.

“We were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers ― who called us directly ― that we could not have [Talarico] on the broadcast,” Colbert said Monday. [...]

Colbert proceeded to explain that the FCC, under Carr, has threatened to require late night TV talk shows to give equal time to every political candidate in a race, and it appears CBS decided to comply in advance. (Notably, Trump’s FCC has not threatened to apply the same rule to right-wing talk radio.) [...] Colbert said CBS discouraged Talarico as a guest, seemingly fearing the FCC would impose an equal-time rule that hasn’t previously been used for late-night talk shows. Talarico is running against Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) in the Democratic primary for a U.S. Senate seat.