Stephen Colbert said CBS‘s legal department spiked his interview with a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate because of the FCC chairman’s recent warning that the agency would pursue enforcement of “equal time” rules on late-night and daytime talk shows. The FCC’s sole Democratic commissioner, Anna Gomez, weighed in on the issue — calling the move to “censor” Colbert another example of “corporate capitulation” to the Trump administration.
“This is yet another troubling example of corporate capitulation in the face of this Administration’s broader campaign to censor and control speech,” Gomez said in a statement Tuesday. “The FCC has no lawful authority to pressure broadcasters for political purposes or to create a climate that chills free expression. CBS is fully protected under the First Amendment to determine what interviews it airs, which makes its decision to yield to political pressure all the more disappointing.”
Gomez continued, “It is no secret that Paramount, CBS’s parent company, has regulatory matters before the government, but corporate interests cannot justify retreating from airing newsworthy content. The FCC is powerless to impose restrictions on protected speech, and any attempt to intimidate broadcasters into self-censorship undermines both press freedom and public trust. I once again urge broadcasters and their parent companies to stand firm against these unlawful pressures and continue exercising their constitutional right to speak freely and without government interference.”
Reps for CBS and Paramount Skydance did not respond to requests for comment.
Paramount Skydance is in the middle of a hostile takeover play for Warner Bros. Discovery and is trying to derail WBD’s deal with Netflix. A Paramount-WBD merger, if that happens, might entail FCC approval.
On Monday’s episode of “The Late Show,” Colbert said that CBS lawyers had prevented him from airing an interview with Texas state Rep. James Talarico, who is running for U.S. Senate, over the FCC’s “equal time” warnings — and that the network’s legal team told Colbert specifically to not to raise the matter on air.
Colbert noted that late-night shows have long been exempt from the FCC’s “equal time” rule, which requires news programs on broadcast networks to provide opposing political candidates equivalent airtime. “That’s crucial. How else were voters supposed to know back in ’92 that Bill Clinton sucked at saxophone?” Colbert joked.
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Colbert called FCC Chairman Brendan Carr a “smug bowling pin” and cited the Jan. 21 letter in which Carr suggested the exemption should no longer apply to programs that Carr characterized as being “motivated by partisan purposes.” Colbert addressed the Carr on the CBS show: “FCC you… because I think you are motivated by partisan purposes yourself, sir. Hey, you smelt it ’cause you dealt it. You are Dutch-ovening America’s airwaves.”
Colbert also announced the Talarico interview would be available on “The Late Show’s” YouTube channel after the show. It was still available YouTube at press time Tuesday, where it had racked up more than 1.5 million views.
In the interview, Colbert cited reports that the FCC had launched an investigation into whether ABC’s “The View” violated equal time rules after Talarico appeared on the talk show earlier this month.
“I think Donald Trump is worried that we’re about to flip Texas,” Talarico told Colbert, eliciting a huge round of applause from the audience. “This is the party that 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.”
From Variety US