Daytime and late-night television talk shows do not have a blanket exemption from laws requiring stations to offer equal broadcast opportunities to political candidates, the Federal Communication Commission said in new guidance.
The agency's Jan. 21 public notice comes months after FCC Chair Brendan Carr made comments interpreted by some as a threat to pull the ABC station licenses if Jimmy Kimmel wasn’t fired over remarks he made on the air about Charlie Kirk’s assassination. President Donald Trump’s administration has also criticized Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert and co-hosts of “The View.”
Experts told USA TODAY that such laws, which date back decades but have not been broadly enforced against television stations, infringe upon the First Amendment rights of broadcasters to make their own editorial decisions.
“The FCC is not intended to be, and is not empowered to be, the nation’s speech police,” said Robert Corn-Revere, chief counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
USA TODAY reached out to the FCC and the National Association of Broadcasters for comment.
