Because the 2024 presidential race nears the end line, the battle for equal time on one among TV’s prime networks rages on. In its last episode earlier than election day, Saturday Night time Stay opened with a shock look by Kamala Harris, who engaged in a second of reflection together with her onscreen counterpart Maya Rudolph. However that “Hold Kamala and Carry On-ala” visitor look was met with swift backlash by FCC regulator Brendan Carr, a Republican who wrote on X (previously Twitter) that the SNL chilly open “is a transparent and blatant effort to evade the FCC’s Equal Time rule.”
Carr, who was nominated by then president Donald Trump and renominated to the five-member fee by President Joe Biden, wrote in a follow-up message that SNL purposefully structured Harris’s cameo “simply hours earlier than an election” in a fashion that denied “all different candidates their one week procedural proper” to “request their Equal Time from the printed station.” Vainness Truthful has reached out to reps on the FCC and NBC for remark.
Did NBC file Harris’s SNL look with the FCC?
Sure. As Carr acknowledged on X, NBC filed an “Equal Time” discover with the company, noting that Harris appeared for 90 seconds “with out cost” on SNL. The community additionally filed a discover concerning Democratic senator Tim Kaine’s look in a quiz-show sketch, which revolved round a contestant performed by host John Mulaney who couldn’t keep in mind the identify of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 working mate. Kaine, who’s at the moment working for reelection towards Republican Hung Cao in Virginia, appeared for 1 minute and 55 seconds “with out cost.”
As a reminder, FCC equal time rules, as established by the Communications Act of 1934, require broadcasters to supply “comparable time and placement to opposing candidates” forward of an election. Protection is just not required to be an identical, and information occasions are exempt from this guideline. The FCC doesn’t mandate {that a} community strategy opposing campaigns to supply equal time—candidates should request it.
Has the Trump marketing campaign requested equal time on the community?
Trump, who already publicly shamed SNL for what he alleges to be previous FCC violations, has indicated in a campaign video that he would probably exercise more control over the FCC, which is overseen by Congress, in a second presidential time period. Through the 2024 presidential election, he has already exerted strain on the FCC to revoke the printed licenses of ABC and CBS.
Within the hours after Harris briefly joined SNL, the Trump marketing campaign criticized the Democratic presidential candidate, telling Fox News that “she’s residing out her warped fantasy cosplaying together with her elitist associates on Saturday Night time Leftists as her marketing campaign spirals down the drain into obscurity.”
However Jonathan S. Uriarte, the fee’s director of strategic communications and coverage adviser, wrote in a press release to Entertainment Weekly that the FCC has not “obtained a grievance from any events” concerning the looks, including that Carr’s remarks “don’t characterize these of the company.”
