According to Mediaite, the investigation centers on whether ABC has violated the federal “equal-time” requirements that govern over-the-air broadcasters, a rule conservatives have long argued is selectively enforced to the benefit of Democrats and progressive causes. “Fake news is not getting a free pass anymore,” a source told Fox News, underscoring the growing push on the right to hold legacy media accountable when they function as de facto campaign platforms for the left.
The rarely enforced equal-time rule, enacted in 1934, was designed to prevent broadcast license holders from turning publicly regulated airwaves into one-sided political megaphones. In January, the FCC announced it would issue guidance to ABC, CBS, and NBC on complying with the Communications Act of 1934, signaling a renewed willingness to scrutinize how these powerful networks handle political content.
February 08, 2026
“Under section 315, if a broadcast station permits any legally qualified candidate for public office to use its facilities, it shall provide an equal opportunity to all other legally qualified candidates for that office,” the FCC said in a statement last month. The agency added that it was particularly focused on networks’ “airing of late night and daytime talk shows,” which often blur the line between entertainment and political advocacy.
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Currently hosted by Joy Behar, Whoopi Goldberg, Alyssa Farah, Sarah Haines, Sunny Hostin, and Ana Navarro, “The View” has long been a lightning rod for conservatives who see it as a daily platform for progressive talking points under the veneer of casual conversation. A source at the FCC told Fox News Digital that Monday’s “View” appearance by Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico triggered the probe.
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Talarico was among the first political candidates to appear on “The View” since the FCC announced its crackdown, raising immediate questions about whether equal opportunities would be extended to his Republican opponents. There has been a longstanding “bona fide” exception for news programming that would not require equal time for opposing candidates, but the FCC now says it “has not been presented with any evidence that the interview portion of any late-night or daytime television talk show program on the air presently would qualify for the ‘bona fide’ news exemption.”
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ABC’s parent company, Disney, never filed an equal-time notice with the FCC regarding Talarico’s appearance, which would implicitly signal that Disney considers “The View” to be bona fide news and therefore exempt, the source said. That stance, if maintained, could force the network either to open its platform to competing candidates or to concede that its programming is partisan commentary rather than neutral journalism.
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Last month, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr singled out late-night hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert—whose CBS show ends in May—as figures of particular interest in this broader review of political content on broadcast television. “If Kimmel or Colbert want to continue to do their programming” as they are, Carr said, “they can go to a cable channel or a podcast or a streaming service,” a pointed reminder that federally regulated broadcast licenses come with obligations that many conservative viewers believe have been ignored for far too long.
