With election season around the corner, the Federal Communications Commission issued a broadside on Wednesday aimed at late-night and daytime shows that air political interviews.
The agency stated that shows like “The View” and “The Tonight Show” may not be considered “bona fide” news programs, and thus could be forced to parcel out airtime evenly to opposing candidates.
“The FCC has not been presented with any evidence that the interview portion of any late night or daytime television talk show program on air presently would qualify for the bona fide news exemption,” the FCC’s media bureau stated on Wednesday.
Anna Gomez, the sole Democratic member of the commission, called the guidance “an escalation in this FCC’s ongoing campaign to censor and control speech.” She urged broadcasters not to self-censor out of fear of government intimidation.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has previously warned the agency will not allow late-night to become a “narrow partisan circus.” In September, he famously threatened action in the wake of a controversial Jimmy Kimmel monologue, which led Disney to suspend Kimmel’s show. At the time, Carr also suggested that “The View,” ABC’s left-leaning daytime show, may not be exempt from the FCC’s equal time rule.
The Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog group, has found that since 2022, 97% of political guests on late-night shows have been on the left. A recent report cited 35 interviews with Democratic officials in the last six months — including several Democratic senators and governors — and zero with Republicans.
In 2006, the FCC ruled that an interview on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — then a candidate for re-election — was bona fide news programming, and that NBC affiliates did not owe equal time to his Democratic opponent. The commission ruled that interviews on “The Tonight Show” were “based on the producers’ independent news judgment as to the participant’s newsworthiness and not motivated by partisan purposes.”
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In its guidance on Wednesday, the FCC’s media bureau signaled that times have changed, noting in a footnote that Leno no longer hosts the show.
The agency warned that there is no blanket exception for all late-night and daytime shows, and that such determinations are made case-by-case. The bureau also encouraged broadcasters to file a formal petition for a declaratory ruling if they are in any doubt as to whether the rule applies.
In her response, Gomez stated that the FCC’s policies have not changed and that daytime and late-night shows are entitled to exercise their news judgment.
“The First Amendment does not yield to government intimidation,” she said.
From Variety US