- President Ronald Reagan, Republican, revoked the equal time rule in the 80s.
- The equal time rule was limited to news broadcasts in the public interest. It did not apply to entertainment like late night talk shows.
- The FCC has no jurisdiction over cable TV, Satellite TV, or streaming providers. Only over the air broadcasts are regulated by the FCC.
this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2026
72 points (96.2% liked)
News
34448 readers
3673 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
The FCC has no jurisdiction over cable TV, Satellite TV, or streaming providers. Only over the air broadcasts are regulated by the FCC.
Any source on this? Wikipedia says the opposite:
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, Wi-Fi, satellite, and cable across the United States.
There is no statutory authority for the FCC to regulate content over any medium other than over the air broadcast which is licensed. There are regulations that affect regional monopoly status, pricing, etc.
The FCC also has no authority to regulate content in print media, recorded music, live performances, etc. It exists to regulate limited access to public airwaves, not privately owned infrastructure.
I would love a return of the FCC equal time rule.
I'm tired of republican propaganda and bullshit dominating the news every goddamn day.
With this administration you know some ideas will be considered more equal than others.
I don't think they thought this one through. You absolutely don't want to be putting republicans on stage with comedians that's a really bad idea.
Most of these shows would love to get a republican on so they could ask them very simple questions that they know they won't be able to answer.
This is where the old Stephen Colbert would have come in handy. Most conservatives had no idea he was making fun of them.
The Bush administration asked him to appear at the White House Press dinner, because they thought he was a Republican, and would roast all the liberals.
That's how stupid the Bush Administration was, and yet somehow the Republicans figured out to be stupider, and invented MAGA.
Do it and ask hard ball questions. "So, rightwing sociopath, what do you think Trump's favorite part about fucking children is?"
Well of course, first and foremost he likes their small hands. It makes him feel more naturally proportioned.
What republican not infested by brainworms WANTS to go on these shows?
Hell Trump famously avoids anything not Fox News because hes a pussy ass bitch that can’t handle criticism.
Just let those talk show hosts roast every damn one of them with continuous accurate questions designed to hurt their weak feelings. Should be a dream for some of these guys who you can tell would really like to rip on some of their guest. Let them all keep score by how many they get to leave the interview.
He's going to be pretty disappointed when he tries to kill The View. They have ALWAYS included Republican hosts on the show, and they treat them with respect, even when the Republican didn't show respect in turn (like that shrieking Meghan McCain).
Right now, there are TWO Republican representatives on The View, so he's going to have a hard time claiming they are only spewing a left wing perspective. His real problem is that his own party is so toxic, the Republican reps on The View are generally against MAGA, too. That isn't political, it's just moral.
Is his argument going to be that all broadcasts MUST be the same as the ADMINISTRATION'S opinion?
It's going to be deliciously ironic if actual leftists use this to get air time
Now we come to the section of the show we would really like everyone to switch off from, where somebody with an actual qualification and experience in the subject matter explains how we've spent the last 45 minutes effectively lying to you.
Thats assuming they don’t just enforce this one way. With Trump, you have to expect it’s going to be one set of rules for his friends and an entirely different set of rules for everyone else.
It's only going to apply to left-leaning shows by forcing them to host conservatives.
Right-leaning shows will find some way to get the supreme court to side with them and give them an exemption.
And what about news shows, including those that are claimed not to be news shows in order to avoid regulation?
That would be applied to both sides, yes?
The republican news sources are generally cable in part to avoid any accountability
Well you say that but CBS...
please, bring it back. it’s what created modern fox news https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_doctrine
The fuck kind of rule is that?
Is this why we have to entertain anti-vaxxers?
Anti vaccine dickheads will not even be the worst, we will have to have nazis come on and argue for exterminating half the population, in thinly veiled terms. Fun times. It was always going to happen with captured opposition parties and no one trying to free them though fyi.
It's a rule from the early 1900's when there were only like 3-4 news sources reaching 100% of the people, instead of today where hundreds of sources can sometimes reach as little as 1-3% of people and some only reach 40-50% max.
Well also back then there was a common reality, and none of the sides lied through their teeth to try and overthrow representative government, proscribe their opponents and critics, to justify federal agents summarily executing someone on the street under false pretense and to persecute her associates, etc.
Why the fuck do we have so many shit laws on the books. "Oh yeah that's the free speech lever we made in the 60s. We don't really use it but its nice to have around"
I'm glad somebody's finally taking on the important issues affecting the American people.
How does the View not count an interview program? It doesn't specify the quality of the interviews.