Key Points
- FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said the agency opened a preliminary probe into “The View” over its interview with Texas Rep. James Talarico during his re-election campaign.
- Carr recently warned talk shows may lose long-standing equal time exemptions if interviews are deemed partisan rather than newsworthy.
- The FCC cannot regulate networks directly but could target ABC-owned local stations if a rival candidate seeks comparable airtime.
The lead commissioner in charge of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) says the agency has launched a preliminary investigation against ABC’s daytime talk show “The View” centered around its interview with Texas Representative James Talarico last month.
The interview took place while Talarico was running for re-election in his district, and the investigation comes about two weeks after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said daytime and late-night talk shows would be required to comply with the agency’s “equal time” rule if those programs present interviews that have “partisan” motivations.
Since the mid-1990s, daytime and late-night talk shows have largely been exempt from the equal time rule, which requires broadcast stations to set aside a comparable amount of time for political candidates when an opponent appears on a non-news program.
The equal time rule is codified into law, but the blanket waiver given to interviews aired by daytime and late-night talk shows is not. Still, until recently, the FCC treated interviews on those shows as comparable to those aired by news shows, and granted a blanket waiver to daytime and late-night talk shows accordingly.
Things are changing under Carr, whose own political motivations have resulted in tougher threats of enforcement action against mainstream broadcast networks and more-favorable treatment of conservative and right-of-center programming and networks. In a letter released last month, Carr said talk shows would be weighed against their probative news value and possible political leanings when determining whether they should receive an exemption moving forward.
During a press conference on Thursday, Carr said the agency has started an “enforcement action” in connection with the Talarico interview that aired on The View, though he didn’t say who was being targeted.
With few exceptions, the FCC cannot regulate broadcast networks, but it can take enforcement action against local TV stations that hold broadcast licenses. ABC owns licensed broadcast stations in New York City, Los Angeles, Fresno, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Houston and Raleigh-Durham.
A violation of the equal time rule would likely only come into play if one of Talarico’s opponents made a request to a local TV station for comparable airtime, something that is unclear. As a program, The View is not required to set aside that time, nor is ABC, though some networks do extend equitable time to candidates in order to avoid equal time conflicts on behalf of their own stations and independently-owned affiliates.
Such was the case in 2024 when NBC offered then-former President Donald Trump time during a NASCAR event to make a political statement, hours after then-Vice President Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance on “Saturday Night Live.” Both were running for president that year.
In a Fox News interview, Carr wrongly implied that NBC had not set aside an equal amount of time for Trump. E-mails obtained through the Freedom of Information Act between Carr and a Fox News producer proved he knew NBC had offered the Trump campaign equal time after Harris’ interview, The Desk previously reported. Trump appointed Carr as chairman of the FCC a few months later.
Carr has targeted ABC at least twice in the past. Within weeks of becoming chairman, Carr sent a letter to the CEO of ABC’s parent company, the Walt Disney Company, demanding additional information into the broadcaster’s diversity, equity and inclusiveness (DEI) programs and insight into its relationship with its affiliates. The letter came after some affiliates complained that Disney was charging high fees for ABC programming while relegating highly-sought shows like “Dancing with the Stars” and “Monday Night Football” to its own streaming services and cable.
A few months later, Carr took issue with a monologue delivered by “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” host Jimmy Kimmel in which the comedian wrongly connected a man suspected of shooting political activist Charlie Kirk to supporters of Trump. Carr encouraged ABC affiliates to pre-empt Kimmel’s program; two broadcasters, Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair, pulled the show from their affiliates for about two weeks.
