WASHINGTON—Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn), ranking member of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), has written FCC Enforcement Bureau Chiefs Patrick Webre and Erin Boone asking for information about its announcement that it would enforce “equal time” rules on late-night TV and talk shows.
As previously reported, the Federal Communications Commission in January issued new guidance on broadcast “equal time” rules which said stations airing “partisan” talk shows and late night programs must comply. This erupted into a major controversy when Stephen Colbert, host of CBS’s "The Late Show," said the network refused to allow him to air an interview with a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate in Texas.
The interview with Texas State Rep. James Talarico has since passed 8.8 million views on YouTube.
“FCC Chair Carr’s attempt to ground his partisan censorship scheme under legal pretense willfully misinterprets and disregards decades of settled precedent and ignores Americans’ fundamental freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment,” Blumenthal wrote in a letter to Webre and Boone. “Congress provided statutory exemptions to the equal time rule in 1959 for bona fide news interviews and newscasts, fearing that the onerous application of the rule ‘would tend to dry up meaningful radio and television coverage of political campaigns’ and impose a ‘virtual blackout in the presentation of candidates on the news-type programs.’”
Blumenthal also wrote to Paramount Global Chairman and CEO David Ellison regarding the decision not to air the interview.
“While CBS claimed Mr. Colbert could host all other candidates, in practice that would require providing airtime for up to 14 other candidates, which would create exactly the ‘virtual blackout’ that Congress sought to prevent by enacting an exception to the equal time rule in 1959,” Blumenthal wrote in a letter to Ellison.
Blumenthal continued: “Additionally, the Subcommittee is engaged in an inquiry into political favoritism and the apparent corruption of antitrust review under the Trump Administration, including the FCC’s review of Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount and Paramount’s attempts to acquire Warner Bros. Paramount’s decision to comply, while it is attempting to enlist the Department of Justice and White House to intervene in the Warner Bros.’ transaction, calls into question its motivations for silencing Mr. Colbert.”
As ranking member of PSI, Blumenthal said he is conducting a preliminary inquiry into the FCC’s abuse of power, including dubious investigations and misrepresentations of the law to silence free speech. In September, Blumenthal hosted a public forum with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on what they called the Trump Administration’s efforts to use the FCC and government authority to chill First Amendment-protected speech and independent, fact-based news reporting.
The full text of Blumenthal’s letter to Webre and Boone is available here. The full text of Blumenthal’s letter to Ellison is available here.
