News/Commentary

FCC puts liberal late-night and ‘The View’ on notice for equal time violations

January 22, 2026 | | Print Article

Late-night talk shows and daytime’s “The View” are finally being put on notice over “equal opportunities” in guest line-ups.

“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,” Brendan Carr, chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), wrote in a post on X Wednesday.

“Today, the FCC reminded them of their obligation to provide all candidates with equal opportunities,” Carr added, referring to the agency’s announcement on the “statutory equal opportunities requirement.”

The latest FCC guidance will certainly get the attention of left-leaning shows such as ABC’s “The View, and “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” as well as NBC’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers” and CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

The Media Research Center conducted a recent study that found that only two conservatives had been invited to “The View” while 128 liberal guests made an appearance through 2025. Late-night shows scored zero in the number of Republicans who were guests, according to MRC’s study.

“Decades ago, Congress made the decision to prevent covered broadcast television programs from being used to advance certain partisan political purposes,” the FCC noted in its press release, which was quickly challenged by FCC Commissioner Anna M. Gomez as “misleading.”

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“Specifically, through section 315 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended,2 Congress put protections in place to ensure equal access to broadcast station facilities for legally qualified candidates for office, regardless of political affiliation,” the notice continued.

Citing the statute, the notice states, “if a broadcast station permits any legally qualified candidate for public office to use its facilities, it shall provide an equal opportunity to all other legally qualified candidates for that office.”

“This statutory requirement and the corresponding FCC rules5 seek to ensure that no legally qualified candidate for office is unfairly given less access to the public airwaves than their opponent,” the FCC continued.

Further, the FCC now said it “has not been presented with any evidence that the interview portion of any late-night or daytime television talk show program on the air presently would qualify for the ‘bona fide’ news exemption,” referring to the exception that allows broadcasters to feature political guests without coming under the FCC’s “equal time” rule.

“Moreover, a program that is motivated by partisan purposes, for example, would not be entitled to an exemption under longstanding FCC precedent,” the FCC stated. “Any program or station that wishes to obtain formal assurance that the equal opportunities requirement does not apply (in whole or in part) is encouraged to promptly file a petition for declaratory ruling that satisfies the statutory requirements for a bona fide news exemption.”

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But FCC Commissioner Gomez responded by calling out the “misleading announcement targeting certain late-night and daytime programs.”

“Nothing has fundamentally changed with respect to our political broadcasting rules, but this does represent an escalation in this FCC’s ongoing campaign to censor & control speech,” she claimed in a post on X.

Frieda Powers
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