The biggest joke on television is the idea that late-night hosts are “doing news.”
Yet from a legal viewpoint, that has been the position of the networks—that when Jimmy Kimmel hosts Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., for a softball interview to announce his bid for governor of California, it’s “bona fide news” rather than Pravda-style propaganda.
President Donald Trump’s Federal Communications Commission Chairman—Brendan Carr—is calling out the truth of matter in a new official announcement that puts the networks on notice he will no longer tolerate their abuse of the FCC’s news exemption.
Carr, who has earned a reputation as a no-nonsense boss at the FCC, is acting to realign policy with reality: That daytime and late-night entertainment shows are just entertainment.
They’re not news, and they don’t deserve to be treated as such.
The “public notice” from the FCC’s Media Bureau—a sort of early-warning alert for potential future enforcement actions—tells broadcasters that “late night and daytime talk shows” are not automatically “bona fide news,” and says 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.”
Translation: Watch out Kimmel, Colbert, and ABC’s “The View” because you no longer get the kid-glove treatment from the FCC when you muck around with left-wing politicians.
Carr is 100% correct: it’s not what Congress enacted. Congress specified bona fide news, the notice explains, for a reason—Congress was “concern[ed] that broadcast stations would apply the exemptions too broadly in service of a political agenda.”
It’s hard to see anything other than a political agenda at work when you look at the 2025 guest list on “The View”: Sens. Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Duckworth, Amy Klobuchar, John Fetterman, Cory Booker, Raphael Warnock, and Bernie Sanders, just to name a few (all Democrats).
Only one Republican was invited on the show—retiring Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. The same could be said of late-night shows: CBS’ Stephen Colbert featured 31 partisan officials in 2025, all Democrats, and Kimmel had on 11—again without a single Republican elected official.
That isn’t news, it’s propaganda.
And, as the FCC warns in its notice, the airwaves cannot be used for programs “designed for the specific advantage of a candidate.” That presumption is hard to maintain with a straight face in light of these statistics, and doubly so when the hosts are sponsoring fundraisers or making max-out contributions to the candidates they are then interviewing for “the news.”
Indeed, ABC doesn’t even seem to consider Kimmel part of ABC News or he’d be prohibited by company policy from showering tens of thousands of dollars on Democratic candidates and PACs.
Television and radio networks broadcast are on public airwaves, and use of that public asset comes with certain responsibilities.
Perhaps unsurprisingly for a body of politicians, Congress has paid particular attention to equal time rules for candidates to ensure that the airwaves are not twisted into a tool for just one side of a hard-fought political contest. Congress required fair access to the airwaves for campaigns, including a right to equal time when a station features just one candidate during a race.
At the same time, Congress recognized that news isn’t always a 50-50 proposition: One candidate might do more public events, say more controversial things, or garner more newsworthy endorsements. So, Congress put in a narrow exemption providing that “bona fide news” shows are exempt from the equal time rule.
Over time, that rule has been expanded and twisted until—as we see today—virtually anything on air could count as news, to the point where the exception swallowed the rule. No longer can this be the case.
Let’s be real: Late night television and “The View” consistently promote one political party and its candidates over the other. Carr is right to put the industry on notice; network executives would be wise to take heed and avoid politicizing the airwaves. Our team at the Center for American Rights will continue to be vigilant for viewers to ensure the networks follow the law.
