FCC public – The FCC has opened a public comment process—running until June 22—on whether ABC’s “The View” should be exempt from the equal-opportunity rule for political candidates, a fight that has split FCC leadership and escalated into a broader First Amendment clash ov
For weeks, the FCC’s fight with ABC has felt less like a narrow licensing dispute and more like a test of how far regulators can push broadcasters over election coverage.
On May 22. the Federal Communications Commission posted a public notice asking the public to weigh in on whether ABC’s “The View” should be exempt from a requirement to offer equal broadcast opportunities to political candidates. The notice lands as the FCC’s own leadership remains sharply divided—and as the stakes for broadcasters are framed in potentially existential terms. with the FCC chair warning that stations could face license consequences over what he says is misleading Iran War coverage following Donald Trump’s claims.
The “The View” request sits inside a larger legal framework the FCC itself has spent years interpreting. The Communications Act of 1934 established the equal-opportunity rule for radio and later television. It was amended in 1959 to exempt certain news-related programming—newscasts. news interviews. news documentaries. and on-the-spot coverage of news events—from the requirement. The question now posed by the FCC is whether “The View” fits those categories.
ABC and its Houston affiliate, KTRK-TV, asked the FCC to move quickly. In a May 7 petition. they requested that the FCC “expeditiously affirm that ‘The View’ continues to qualify for the bona fide news interview exemption.” The commission’s May 22 notice shows the FCC is not treating that request as settled.
The dispute has also been tied to earlier FCC actions. In January, the FCC said daytime and late-night television talk shows do not have a blanket exemption. The agency said it had once determined that the interview segment of “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” qualified for the news interview exemption. but argued that singular decision had been interpreted and applied too broadly in the years since.
FCC Chair Brendan Carr has taken the position that the FCC’s actions are procedural and grounded in the equal time rules. He announced action against ABC in line with those rules after state Rep. James Talarico, D-Texas, appeared on “The View” while running in the state’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary. Carr said Disney-owned ABC had not submitted the proper filing declaring an appearance by a political candidate that would open the window for an opposing candidate to request “comparable time and placement.” During the FCC’s open meeting in March. Carr described the matter as a procedural issue.
Commissioner Anna Gomez, appointed by President Joe Biden in 2023, rejected Carr’s framing. In May. she accused the FCC—under President Donald Trump’s administration—of “using the equal time rule as a way to harass broadcasters for content that it disfavors.” In a May 22 statement posted alongside her comments. she said the FCC was “once again targeting an administration critic by mob rule.” She added: “Let’s not pretend this FCC hasn’t already made up its mind. All they want is for their pro-censorship partisan allies to nod in agreement. My message to Disney: Don’t flinch. Fight.”.
ABC has argued that the FCC’s approach reaches beyond routine regulation and into constitutional territory. In its May 7 filing. ABC said the equal-opportunity rule in the current context is “in serious tension with the First Amendment” and that the FCC’s “actions threaten to upend decades of settled law and practice and chill critical protected speech. both with respect to ‘The View’ and more broadly.”.
Carr, for his part, has been explicit about his standard for exemption. In a May 22 post on X, he wrote that television shows do not qualify for the exemption “if their decisions are based on partisan purposes, such as an intention to advance or harm an individual’s candidacy.”
The FCC’s public notice asks the public to address multiple questions that go to the heart of the regulator-versus-broadcaster conflict. It is seeking comment on whether “The View” qualifies as a bona fide news program. It also asks whether the equal time rule “(passes) relevant constitutional scrutiny. either as a general matter or as applied here.” And it asks commenters to weigh whether the show’s decision-making appears to be “based on newsworthiness or on an attempt to oppose or support particular candidates.”.
The commission said comments can be submitted through the FCC’s Electronic Comment Filing System. The deadline to submit comments is June 22.
The dispute has moved beyond a single episode. The FCC’s earlier statement that talk shows don’t receive a blanket exemption. its description of how a past “Tonight Show” interpretation was treated too broadly. and its March action tied to a political candidate’s appearance all feed into the same fight now unfolding over whether “The View” should be carved out as newsworthy—or treated as subject to equal access rules.
By June 22, the FCC will have received the public input it is requesting—an additional layer in a process that already has FCC leadership trading procedural language for accusations of political pressure, and ABC warning that the outcome could reverberate well beyond a single daytime program.
USA24 reached out to ABC for comment.
FCC Brendan Carr Anna Gomez ABC The View equal time rule First Amendment KTRK-TV James Talarico political candidates Electronic Comment Filing System