ABC asks FCC to exempt The View from equal opportunities rule

ABC has pushed the Federal Communications Commission to treat The View as a bona fide news interview program, a classification that would exempt the daytime talk show from the statutory equal opportunities requirement. The request, filed May 7 by American Broadcasting Companies and Houston station KTRK-TV, turns a familiar TV format into a test of how far the FCC can go in policing political speech on broadcast television.

The FCC’s Media Bureau opened the matter in Public Notice DA 26-517 on May 22 and set comments due June 22, with reply comments due July 6. The View, now co-hosted by Joy Behar, Alyssa Farah Griffin, Whoopi Goldberg, Sara Haines, Sunny Hostin and Ana Navarro, sits at the center of a dispute that ABC says reaches far beyond one program and one network.

The equal opportunities rule, often called the equal time rule, requires broadcasters to provide comparable time and placement to opposing legally qualified candidates, though not necessarily identical airtime. The FCC’s January 21 guidance said broadcast television stations airing programming motivated by partisan purposes must comply with that rule, and it specifically flagged late-night and daytime talk shows. The agency also noted that the rule does not apply to cable channels or other nonbroadcast distribution, a distinction that sharply limits its reach.

ABC argues that The View has long operated under a bona fide news exemption and points to a 2002 FCC staff letter that recognized the program as news-interview programming. The company says the commission’s renewed scrutiny threatens First Amendment rights and could chill political coverage by broadcasters that rely on interviews, commentary and candidate appearances. That concern is especially acute as the industry moves toward a high-stakes election cycle, when broadcasters decide how aggressively to book and question candidates.

Disney has also pulled viewers into the fight, urging fans of The View to submit comments to the FCC and making audience mobilization part of its legal and political strategy. The broad message from ABC is that uncertainty over the rule could reach well beyond a single daytime roundtable and reshape editorial judgment for years. If the FCC narrows broadcaster discretion now, the consequences could extend to news and opinion programming across the broadcast landscape, while cable and other platforms remain outside the rule’s reach.