An old broadcasting rule comes back into focus

On Monday, late night host Stephen Colbert told his audience why Democratic Texas Rep. James Talarico would not appear as planned. According to Colbert, the network’s lawyers had told him “in no uncertain terms” that Talarico, who is running for U.S. Senate, could not appear on The Late Show’s broadcast due to concerns about violating the Federal Communications Commission’s “equal time requirement.” The long-standing rule requires broadcasters to give political candidates balanced interview opportunities on broadcast networks.

CBS says it did not prohibit the broadcast. According to a Tuesday statement from the network, its lawyers warned The Late Show that the interview could trigger the requirement for the show to also feature the two other Democratic candidates vying for the Senate seat. CBS said that Colbert’s show then opted to air the Talarico interview on its YouTube channel instead.

Colbert, whose tenure on the network ends in May, blasted CBS for what he viewed as succumbing to pressure from the Trump administration. “Let’s just call this what it is,” Colbert said. “Donald Trump’s administration wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV, because all Trump does is watch TV.”

The dispute has revived questions over how an old federal law mandating equal time applies to widespread media use in the 21st century. The FCC maintains that it is in the best interest of the American people to give political candidates equal interview opportunities. But critics say the agency’s reaffirmation of the equal time doctrine demonstrates a pattern of the Trump administration pressuring broadcast networks with which it disagrees.

The Communications Act of 1934 established the equal time rule, also known as the equal opportunity rule. Daniel Lyons, a professor at Boston College Law School specializing in telecommunications law, said the rule was particularly useful when only a handful of television channels were broadcast. “A local broadcaster can have a significant amount of power to sway public opinion about one candidate versus another,” Lyons said. “It’s not that big of an issue today, but it’s still not insignificant.”

Media outlets also used to have to present both sides of a controversial issue under the 1949 FCC broadcast rule called the Fairness Doctrine, but the agency eliminated that standard during the Reagan administration.

The equal time rule only applies to broadcast television and radio, meaning that cable news channels like Fox and CNN do not have to comply. In 2022, the FCC clarified that broadcast networks don’t have to extend invitations to opposing candidates. If a political candidate gets an interview on a broadcast station, it’s up to their opponent to ask for their share of interview time.

Over the past few decades, the rule has narrowed in various ways. In 1959, a Chicago news station reported on a foreign dignitary’s visit with Mayor Richard Daley. Lars Daly, a mayoral candidate with a slim following, complained that he deserved equal broadcast time. The FCC agreed. Because the equal time rule made networks hesitant to interview political candidates at all for fear of violating the requirement, Congress created the “bona fide news” broadcast exception. This meant that programs that broadcast strictly news would not have to comply with the rule.

Over time, the FCC has also granted exemptions to several talk show programs, including Donahue and Entertainment Tonight. Talk shows blend entertainment and news, sometimes triggering exceptions to the equal time rule.

In 2006, The Tonight Show With Jay Leno hosted California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who was then running for reelection. Schwarzenegger’s Democratic opponent, Phil Angelides, wanted equal interview time, but the FCC decided that Leno’s show could be exempt from the rule.

But this January, the FCC published guidance clarifying that talk shows won’t automatically get a free pass on the equal time rule. Exemption will be a case-by-case decision, the FCC statement explained.

According to Lyons, this development comes after the Trump administration complained that former Vice President Kamala Harris received too much air time on programs like The View and Saturday Night Live during the 2024 presidential campaign. “What we’re seeing right now is [FCC Chairman Brendan] Carr leading the FCC in a way that might be carving back on that exemption and therefore expanding the scope of the rules,” Lyons said.

In an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, Carr clarified that the new guidance is in line with public interest. “The equal time rule at its core is about stopping legacy media from picking winners and losers in elections,” Carr told Ingraham. “It’s so that the American people can decide.”

CBS’ decision not to broadcast the Colbert report was an internal one meant to preempt any potential FCC action. But days after Colbert’s monologue, Carr confirmed that the commission would investigate the talk show The View for possible violations of the equal time provision following an interview with Talarico. That announcement prompted questions over whether the agency has constitutional authority to enforce the rule.

In the 1969 case Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that since broadcast networks rely on a limited number of radio frequencies, the government has a unique interest to make sure the medium presents all sides of an issue.

But the court never explicitly applied this ruling to the equal time requirement, Lyons said, leaving the issue in a gray area. “It looks like the FCC is using that gray area to nudge broadcasters toward its preferred policy preferences,” Lyons said. “That’s not unusual. What the Trump administration is doing is basically saying the quiet part out loud that other administrations have done on a lesser scale.”

Harold Feld, senior vice president at the free speech advocacy group Public Knowledge, said he’d like to see more talk shows giving political candidates equal time. But he thinks Carr’s targets look suspiciously partisan. “Somehow it seems like all of his fine rhetoric about how he’s going to enforce the law only cuts in one direction,” he said.

However one interprets the FCC’s latest action, it’s true that most political guests on late-night shows cut against the president’s direction: According to the Media Research Center, in the first half of 2025, 99% of such guests were left-leaning.