{"id":425844,"date":"2026-01-23T22:26:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T22:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/425844\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T22:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T22:26:12","slug":"jimmy-kimmel-decries-fccs-equal-time-crackdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/425844\/","title":{"rendered":"Jimmy Kimmel Decries FCC’s Equal Time Crackdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tJimmy Kimmel<\/a> responded to the FCC<\/a>\u2018s announcement this week that talk shows like his may be on the hook to offer equal time to political candidates, calling it Chairman Brendan Carr<\/a>\u2018s \u201csneaky little way of keeping viewpoints that aren\u2019t his off the air.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s his latest attack on free speech,\u201d Kimmel said on his ABC late-night show on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe FCC\u2019s Media Bureau issued guidance this week<\/a> on the agency\u2019s equal time rule<\/a>, which requires that broadcasters who feature political candidates provide comparable airtime to rivals, if it is requested. Stations have long enjoyed an exemption for their news programming, and in recent decades have thought that to include daytime and late night talk shows as well.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the Media Bureau warned broadcasters this week that talk shows may not be exempt, meaning shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and The View may put their stations on the hook for equal time when they feature political candidates as guests. Many talk shows had assumed that they were exempt, given a 2006 FCC decision that NBC stations didn\u2019t have to give equal time to a Democratic rival of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger after he appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.<\/p>\n

\n\tKimmel said that the rules \u2014 which apply to broadcasters but not cable, satellite or streaming \u2014 were a throwback to the early days of radio and TV.<\/p>\n

\n\tKimmel said, \u201cEqual time was designed to limit how much influence broadcasters have over public opinion. But we\u2019re not the only thing on television anymore. We\u2019re a small fish now. We used to be the whole pond. Now we\u2019re part of like this enormous Las Vegas buffet. We\u2019re the mashed potatoes on the buffet, and now the FCC wants to mash us even more. They\u2019re mashing our potatoes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe added, \u201cI have no idea what the outcome of this is going to be. We will find out\u2026.It is another example of this administration trying to squash anyone who doesn\u2019t support them by following the rules. And we know how much respect these people have for the rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKimmel and other talk show hosts, as well as ABC the daytime show The View have been targets of Trump and his allies. <\/p>\n

\n\tLast fall, Carr warned ABC stations following comments that Kimmel made about the response to Charlie Kirk\u2019s assassination. Hours later, ABC pulled the show, but the late-night host was brought back the next week after a backlash.<\/p>\n

\n\tCarr also had cited ABC\u2019s The View<\/a> in warning that the FCC would re-examine the exemptions to the equal time rule.<\/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 stated in its recent guidance. \u201cMoreover, a program that is motivated by partisan purposes, for example, would not be entitled to an exemption under longstanding FCC precedent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe View has featured candidates as guests, including Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, and producers say that GOP rivals have been invited, but they don\u2019t always take up the offer. Trump last appeared, via phone, in 2015.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe FCC\u2019s guidance was aimed at TV talk shows, but legal experts say that that the equal time rule applies to radio as well. That would mean that broadcast talk radio, dominated by voices on the right, would also have to take into account the possibility that they would have to offer Democratic rivals to Republican candidates airtime.<\/p>\n

\n\tAn FCC spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tRobert Corn-Revere, chief counsel for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and former chief counsel at the FCC, said that the agency has historically interpreted the exemption \u201cquite broadly to avoid a First Amendment confrontation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis recent interpretation appears to be geared toward TV talk shows because that is one of Brendan Carr\u2019s hobby horses (based on what appears to preoccupy the President), but the law is not limited to that issue,\u201d Corn-Revere said via email.\u00a0\u201cAny actual FCC action on this in a particular case would set up a First Amendment confrontation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSean Hannity, who hosts a daily radio show in addition to his primetime Fox News show, seemed to decry the idea of a more stringent enforcement in a statement to the Los Angeles Times.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTalk radio is successful because people are smart and understand we are the antidote to corrupt and abusively biased left wing legacy media,\u201d Hannity told the Times. \u201cWe need less government regulation and more freedom. Let the American people decide where to get their information from without any government interference.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe equal time rule applies to political candidates, not the mere expression of political views. The rule is often confused with the Fairness Doctrine, who required stations to carry a balance of different viewpoints on issues of public importance. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe doctrine was abandoned in 1987, yet there are some fears that the latest FCC guidance would lead to talk stations avoiding candidate voices altogether.<\/p>\n

\n\tMichael Harrison, the publisher of Talkers, a trade publication covering the talk media industry, warned that stations would try to limit their exposure.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen broadcasters are unsure of the guidelines and consequences of booking political candidates \u2013 or simply spokespeople \u2013 they tend to avoid engaging in that kind of programming to a great extent,\u201d he said. \u201cWe learned during the days of the Fairness Doctrine how that kind of regulation chills political speech on the airwaves as opposed to encouraging it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jimmy Kimmel responded to the FCC\u2018s announcement this week that talk shows like his may be on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[17105,12,88,202635,3092,17114,92],"class_list":["post-425844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-brendan-carr","tag-donald-trump","tag-entertainment","tag-equal-time-rule","tag-fcc","tag-jimmy-kimmel","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}