Comcast and its entertainment company NBC Universal may soon be the subject of a formal inquiry launched by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over a comedy sketch featuring former Vice President Kamala Harris that aired on “Saturday Night Live” last year.
Over the past few weeks, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has informally inquired about the process of designating the matter for a formal hearing, The Desk has learned based on interviews with people inside the agency and others familiar with the matter.
The hearing would focus on certain obligations of WNBC-TV (Channel 4), the NBC-owned station in New York City which was the subject of an informal complaint filed by a grassroots group called the Center for American Rights (CAR) last year. The complaint accused WNBC of violating the “equal time” provision of the Communications Act, which requires broadcasters to provide equitable air time to all political candidates in a race when an opposing candidate appears during a TV program.
The complaint was dismissed by Carr’s predecessor, Jessica Rosenworcel, weeks before the inauguration of President Donald Trump. Carr decided to re-open the investigation and two others involving local TV broadcasters shortly after Trump appointed him as chairman in mid-January.
Over the past four months, Carr has met with FCC officials and legal experts to discuss the best path toward bringing the WNBC complaint before the full board of commissioners, according to two sources within the agency and one source familiar with the matter.
WNBC had no direct involvement in the segments featuring or Kaine, but the complaint appears to target the station because it is one of a dozen that shares common ownership with NBC, and is the network’s largest local TV outlet by population reached. Further complicating the issue is that NBC did fulfill its equal time obligation by inviting Trump to appear on the network; his campaign accepted the invitation by offering a pre-taped statement that aired during a NASCAR race and “Sunday Night Football” the day after the Saturday Night Live sketches.
Carr was made aware that NBC gave equal time to the Trump campaign on November 3, hours before he was scheduled to participate in a TV interview with Laura Ingraham of the Fox News Channel. In documents obtained by The Desk, Carr told several booking producers at Fox News that NBC had provided equal time notices to the agency related to Harris and Kaine’s appearance on Saturday Night Live. At 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time, Carr emailed producers with links to both notices as they appeared on the FCC’s website, the documents showed.
Still, hours later, Carr told Ingraham that it appeared NBC tried to skirt the equal time requirement by giving Harris an opportunity to appear on Saturday Night Live just days before the election, without offering the same consideration to Trump or any of the third-party candidates running in the race at the time.
“This appears to be a clear and blatant effort by NBC to evade the requirements of federal law, in particular the FCC’s equal time provision,” Carr said during his appearance on “The Ingraham Angle.”
He continued: “America’s broadcasters have a very special privilege — it’s a privilege they were originally given for free…and in exchange, they have certain obligations. One of them is equal time rule. This has been on the books for decades…that appears to be triggered here.”
When asked if NBC could lose its broadcast license, Carr said “every single option needs to be on the table for the FCC.”
It isn’t clear why Carr suggested to Ingraham that NBC may have violated the equal time provision, when he knew about the notices beforehand. The Desk reached out to the FCC’s Media Bureau and to Carr’s office for comment.
In a statement on Tuesday, a Fox News Media spokesperson said a producer who was no longer with the network “failed to relay the information from Carr to the show, and neither Laura Ingraham nor the executive producer were made aware of the notice ahead of the interview.” After the interview, Fox News Digital published a story noting that NBC had offered equal time to the Trump campaign.
The records between Carr and Fox News producers were released by the FCC as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by Christopher Terry, an associate professor of media law at the University of Minnesota. Terry says Carr lied about the equal time matter during his appearance on Fox News, because the records prove that he knew the agency was notified by NBC about their offer to the Trump campaign following Harris’ appearance.
“Commissioner Carr’s irresponsible rhetoric was problematic at the time,” Terry told The Desk on Tuesday. “His decision to reopen the case knowing that there was no violation of Section 315 (of the Communications Act, which includes the equal time rule) demonstrated his inherent bias. Now, as Carr attempts to find an end around the law, we see clearly that he’s running the FCC for the benefit of just one person.”
The equal time rule does not require a broadcaster to provide a candidate with time during a specific broadcast — in other words, NBC was not obligated to offer Trump time during Saturday Night Live. The rule only requires broadcasters to provide equal access to their air waves — which NBC did by giving Trump time during the NASCAR race, Terry noted.
In conferences with legal experts and agency officials, Carr has been told much of the same, sources told The Desk. He has also been warned that any action on the matter would almost certainly invite a legal challenge by Comcast and NBC Universal.
Comcast has already retained a law firm that specializes in communications law, one source said. A Comcast spokesperson did not return a request for comment.
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Editor’s note: This story was updated Tuesday evening to include a statement from a Fox News Media spokesperson.
