CBS host Stephen Colbert says network barred airing interview with Texas US Senate candidate

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, Feb 17 (Reuters) – CBS late-night show host Stephen Colbert said on Monday that the network’s lawyers barred him from airing an interview with Democratic Texas State Representative James Talarico, who is running for his party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate.

“Donald Trump’s administration wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV, because all Trump does is watch TV,” Colbert said on Monday’s broadcast of “The Late Show.”

The Republican-led FCC said last month that daytime and late-night TV talk shows are no longer considered “bona fide” news programs that are exempt from equal time rules that require them to give air time to the views of opposing candidates.

Colbert criticized FCC Chair Brendan Carr and the network’s lawyers, saying they were unilaterally enforcing Carr’s directive for “purely financial reasons.”

Those words echoed the explanation Paramount provided when it announced in July that Colbert’s program would go off the air in May as it was seeking approval from the Federal Communications Commission for its $8.4 billion merger with Skydance Media.  

Reuters and other outlets reported earlier this month that the FCC is opening an investigation into whether ABC’s “The View” daytime talk show violated equal time rules for interviews with political candidates after an appearance by Talarico.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly pushed Carr to take action against U.S. broadcasters and criticized networks for what he views as one-sided coverage.

Colbert posted the interview on the program’s YouTube page, where it has about 2 million views as of 3 p.m. ET and millions more views on other platforms.

CBS said in a statement that the decision followed “legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal-time rule for two other candidates, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and presented options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled.”

CBS added the show “decided to present the interview through its YouTube channel with on-air promotion on the broadcast rather than potentially providing the equal-time options.”

CHANGING LANDSCAPE FOR TALK SHOWS

Until January, talk shows were deemed to have qualified for the equal opportunities exemption as genuine news interviews, ever since the FCC Media Bureau granted an exemption to the interview portion of Jay Leno’s “The Tonight Show” in 2006.

Networks have relied on the ruling as a precedent for recent interviews with political candidates.

Carr, Paramount Skydance and CBS did not respond to requests for comment on Colbert’s remarks. The White House declined to comment.

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, a Democrat, criticized CBS’s decision not to air the interview, calling it censorship. She said the FCC has no lawful authority to pressure broadcasters for political purposes and CBS has free speech rights to air the interview.

“This is yet another troubling example of corporate capitulation in the face of this administration’s broader campaign to censor and control speech,” Gomez said. “It is no secret that Paramount, CBS’s parent company, has regulatory matters before the government, but corporate interests cannot justify retreating from airing newsworthy content.”

Paramount Skydance is seeking to buy Warner Bros Discovery.

Carr faced bipartisan criticism after pressuring broadcasters to take ABC late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel off the air in September, warning they could face fines or loss of licenses, and said “it’s time for them to step up.”

Two major broadcasters said they would pull Kimmel off the air and Disney briefly suspended Kimmel before restoring the show. In December, Democratic U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin told Carr, “you used your position within the federal government to take Jimmy Kimmel off the air in a clear attempt to chill free speech.”

(Reporting by David ShepardsonEditing by Bill Berkrot and Chizu Nomiyama )