{"id":97475,"date":"2026-01-26T22:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T22:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/97475\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T22:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T22:02:08","slug":"why-josh-shapiro-on-colbert-wont-trigger-the-fccs-equal-time-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/97475\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Josh Shapiro on Colbert Won’t Trigger the FCC’s Equal Time Rule"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tPennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro<\/a> is guesting on Stephen Colbert<\/a>\u2018s The Late Show Monday, and there isn\u2019t anything FCC head Brendan Carr can do about it \u2014 or as a result of it.<\/p>\n

\n\tLast week, the Federal Communications Commission released new guidance<\/a> that could revoke the exemption to its \u201cequal time\u201d rules that daytime and late-night talk shows have enjoyed since the \u201990s. Basically, the equal time policy requires TV stations to provide equivalent amounts of air time to political candidates on both sides of the same election. (The onus is not on the specific show or even the broadcast network \u2014 it is the individual stations that must balance the scales. It\u2019s also a bit on the campaigns themselves. When free time is provided to a candidate, a record is placed in the station\u2019s political file. Opposing candidates can then submit an equal opportunities request.) Often the discrepancy is resolved with free commercial time to the candidate who was not booked on television.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe equal time rule has not historically applied to news coverage, and in 1996, Jay Leno\u2019s producers won a carveout for talk shows. The Tonight Show performs \u201cbona fide\u201d news interviews, they argued, and thus should be granted the same exemption as a newscast. The FCC agreed, and late-night shows and daytime programs were no longer beholden to the requirement. (And perhaps not coincidentally, the following year, The View was launched.)<\/p>\n

\n\tUntil now.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cImportantly, the FCC has not been presented with any evidence that the interview portion of any late night or daytime television talk show program on air presently would qualify for the bona fide news exemption,\u201d the FCC wrote on Wednesday, Jan. 21. \u201cMoreover, a program that is motivated by partisan purposes, for example, would not be entitled to an exemption under long-standing FCC precedent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Hollywood Reporter reached out to the FCC on Monday with a request for comment on this story, though we did not immediately receive a response.<\/p>\n

\n\tCarr is targeting programming that leans left; he is President Donald Trump\u2019s FCC chair, after all. Shapiro is a Democrat, and Colbert is among the most outspoken critics of Trump this side of, well, The View.<\/p>\n

\n\tShapiro, the sitting governor of Pennsylvania, but the equal time rule does not apply to politicians \u2014 it applies to political candidates. And through Shapiro officially launched his reelection campaign on Jan. 8 with events in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia \u2014 here comes the technicality \u2014 he is not yet legally a candidate for the office he currently holds. Pennsylvania law will not recognize Shapiro (or anyone else) as a gubernatorial candidate until Feb. 17, which is the first day to circulate and file nomination petitions. Then, Shapiro will need 2,000 signatures of support, a $200 check to file his candidacy, and a statement of financial interest to make the ballot.<\/p>\n

\n\tUntil then, Shapiro is on the trail \u2014 though not necessarily (or at least entirely) the campaign trail. The first-term governor is doing the talk show circuit pushing his memoir, Where We Keep the Light. Gov. Shapiro will appear on Tuesday\u2019s episode of The View, and like CBS following tonight\u2019s airing of The Late Show, your local ABC station need not set aside any airtime for Shapiro\u2019s Republican opponent, Pennsylvania State Treasurer\u00a0Stacy Garrity.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tFCC chair Brendan Carr<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tKevin Dietsch\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tThe late night TV hosts are laughing off the latest FCC crackdown. On Thursday, the day after Carr targeted the time slot, Colbert feigned shock.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat? What? A new crackdown on\u00a0late night TV<\/a>? That has enormous implications for me for four more months,\u201d Colbert said<\/a>. Oh yeah, did we mention his show was canceled? <\/p>\n

\n\tColbert added, \u201cSo, let\u2019s talk about these new crackdown rules that my lawyer warned me not to talk about. The FCC is announcing plans to enforce long-dormant rules on appearances by political candidates on network talk shows. Oh, no. They\u2019ve awakened the long-dormant rules, not seen since the mind-bending horrors of the pre-Euclidian variety show \u2018Cthulhu Tonight!\u2019 This is clearly an attempt to silence me, Jimmy [Kimmel and] Seth [Meyers].\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe same night, Jimmy Kimmel told America<\/a>, \u201cI might need your help again.\u201d Jimmy Kimmel Live! was suspended this past summer for a few nights after Kimmel made a monologue joke that presumed the political leanings of conservative podcaster Charlie Kirk\u2019s assassin. Though Carr certainly inserted himself into that controversy, it was the local ABC affiliates that really got the ball rolling. Jimmy Kimmel Live! returned to the airwaves after a few nights on ice, helping to cool the national temperature down some.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is guesting on Stephen Colbert\u2018s The Late Show Monday, and there isn\u2019t anything FCC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[33,28,30,29,43745],"class_list":{"0":"post-97475","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-josh-shapiro","9":"tag-pennsylvania","10":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","11":"tag-pennsylvania-news","12":"tag-stephen-colbert"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}