By Steve Levy
Late-night host Stephen Colbert lied to the public when he said that the CBS Network prevented him from airing an interview with a Democratic Senate candidate from Texas.
The reality is that the lawyers for CBS clearly advised Colbert that, if he was going to air an interview of one Democratic candidate for Senate, it might trigger the FCC’s equal time doctrine, which would require the network to allow other candidates in the Democratic primary, as well as Republican challengers, to get equal time on the network.
The lawyers weren’t pulling this out of thin air. It’s the law.
The equal time doctrine applies to networks, and it goes back for decades. The idea was that a network, which seeks the privilege of obtaining a license from the government, must, as a quid pro quo, agree not to become advocates for one party over another.
Consequently, if the network is going to give airtime to one candidate, that person‘s challenger should at least have the opportunity to request airtime as well.
It’s important to know that this applies only to networks such as ABC, CBS and NBC and not to cable outlets such as Fox, CNN or MS NOW.
It is also important to distinguish the equal time concept from the fairness doctrine. That concept didn’t deal with candidates getting equal time. Rather, it related to a need for networks to balance out coverage of issues on their broadcasts. It proved to be so cumbersome and unenforceable that the doctrine was abolished in 1987.
Many people inaccurately believe that it also knocked out the equal access provision. It did not.
The equal time provision does not affirmatively require networks to have the political opposition on for an equal amount of time, but it does allow for the opposing candidate to demand such time, in which case the network cannot refuse.
Colbert took this legal advice and purposely distorted it to try to bash the Republican administration and also to make more headlines for himself.
This episode proves that Colbert has always been a Team Blue activist. This is exactly what the equal time provision was seeking to prevent. Over the years, Colbert invited about 300 guests on his show; almost all of them were Democrats. The one Republican he invited was the Trump-hating Liz Cheney.
Another network show, The View on ABC, is notorious for its left-leaning Democratic advocacy.
So the fairness doctrine of the equal access document has always been there, but it’s pretty much been ignored for all these years. Brendan Carr, appointed by the Trump administration to head the FCC, is pointing out that it must be enforced.
It raises the question as to whether the provision itself is a relic of the past.
When it was developed, it was a time when there was no such thing as cable TV. There were six or seven channels to choose from.
A case could be made that it’s obsolete now that viewers can simply say they’ve had enough of Colbert (which they apparently have, given his low ratings) and switch to other cable channels.
Another dilemma exists in that the doctrine also supposedly applies to talk radio, which is dominated by conservative talk shows.
Theoretically, Democrat candidates can demand equal time from Sean Hannity and other conservatives who load up their shows with conservative speakers
The point is that most Democrats wouldn’t want to go on conservative talk shows anyway, just as most Republican candidates wouldn’t want to be subjected to the hecklers at The View.
So all of this is really much ado about nothing
In today’s market, viewers can choose who they want to see, but let’s stop the nonsense and falsehoods that Colbert is peddling.
His antics prove his critics correct that he’s nothing more than a political activist posing as a comedian on a failed talk show.