FCC Signals Scrutiny of Political Guests on Late-Night Talk Shows

Trump-appointed FCC chair Brendan Carr took his latest shot at broadcast late night Tuesday, with a new agency notice challenging the long-held assumption that political guest appearances on late-night talk shows are shielded from equal-time requirements under federal law.

The guidance, released by the Federal Communications Commission’s Media Bureau, revisits the agency’s interpretation of Section 315 of the Communications Act, which requires broadcast stations to provide comparable airtime to opposing legally qualified candidates when one candidate is allowed to “use” a station’s facilities. While the FCC has long recognized exemptions for bona fide news programming, the notice warns broadcasters not to assume those exemptions automatically apply to late-night (or daytime) talk shows.

The document delivers its most consequential message midway through its discussion of precedent. “Importantly,” the Media Bureau writes, “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.” In effect, the agency is signaling that modern broadcast talk shows are operating without the formal regulatory cover many have presumed they had for years.

That presumption traces largely to a mid-2000s staff-level decision involving The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, which found that Leno’s 2006 re-election interview with then–California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger qualified as a bona fide news interview. At the time, the ruling was widely interpreted as a breakthrough for late night, allowing candidates to appear on entertainment programs without triggering equal-time obligations.

But the FCC now stresses that the Leno ruling was narrow and fact-specific, applying only to that program as it existed at the time. The agency also notes that the show is no longer on the air and that the analysis relied in part on contextual factors unique to the case, including Leno’s personal relationship with Schwarzenegger.

More broadly, the FCC emphasizes that it has never issued comparable findings for any current late-night or daytime talk show. Nor, the notice says, would a program qualify for an exemption if its content, format, or guest selection is motivated by partisan purposes rather than newsworthiness.

While the notice stops short of enforcement, it raises the stakes for broadcast networks by reminding them that candidate appearances outside a bona fide news exemption constitute a “use” under the Communications Act. Such appearances can trigger equal-time requests from opposing candidates, as well as immediate political-file disclosure requirements that invite scrutiny and challenge.

The guidance marks the latest escalation in Carr’s broader campaign against what he has repeatedly characterized as partisan broadcast programming. Though the notice itself does not cite audience research or guest-count data, it arrives amid sustained conservative criticism of late night as ideologically lopsided.

One frequently cited source is the right-leaning watchdog NewsBusters, which reported that 99 percent of late-night guests in the second half of 2025 were liberals or Democrats. According to the study, the five nightly comedy shows—Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Late Night with Seth Meyers, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and The Daily Show—featured 90 liberals or Democrats and just one conservative between July and December.

Among partisan officeholders, NewsBusters counted 31 Democrats and zero Republicans. Stephen Colbert led all hosts with 17 such appearances, followed by Jimmy Kimmel with seven. Jimmy Fallon interviewed no politicians during the study period, though he did welcome what NewsBusters determined to be late night’s lone conservative guest during the period: Greg Gutfeld.

While such data points are not referenced in the FCC’s notice, the agency’s focus on partisan intent closely mirrors Carr’s public rhetoric. In interviews and on social media, the chair has accused late-night hosts of functioning as political advocates rather than entertainers or journalists.

The FCC’s new notice drew a sharp rebuke from the Commission’s lone Democrat, Anna Gomez, who warned that the guidance risks chilling editorial discretion.

“For decades, the Commission has recognized that bona fide news interviews, late-night programs, and daytime news shows are entitled to editorial discretion based on newsworthiness, not political favoritism,” Gomez said. “This announcement therefore does not change the law, but it does represent an escalation in this FCC’s ongoing campaign to censor and control speech.”

“The 1st Amendment does not yield to government intimidation,” she added. “Broadcasters should not feel pressured to water down, sanitize or avoid critical coverage out of fear of regulatory retaliation.”

Formally, stations remain free to book candidates and air political comedy. But the notice makes clear that broadcasters who want certainty must now seek it, by filing petitions for declaratory rulings demonstrating that specific programs qualify for bona fide news exemptions.

Until then, the agency is signaling that old assumptions no longer suffice. In Carr’s FCC, late night’s political influence is no longer being shrugged off as harmless comedy—but treated as a regulatory question waiting to be tested.

Read the full FCC notice below: