Late-night host Stephen Colbert laid into executives at CBS and its parent company for the second night running Tuesday, rebuking his bosses for their handling of his interview with a Texas Democrat.
In an on-air segment, Colbert suggested the network was caving to pressure by trying to apply the Federal Communications Commission’s equal-time rule, which requires broadcasters to provide equal opportunity to political candidates but has traditionally not applied to news and talk show interviews.
Colbert was already set to depart from the network in May, after CBS said it was canceling “The Late Show” for financial reasons last summer.
The spat over the scope of the FCC equal-time rule began this week, when Colbert accused the network’s parent company, Paramount Skydance, of blocking his interview with Texas state Rep. James Talarico (D), a U.S. Senate candidate, over concerns it would violate the rule.
CBS pushed back against that account in a statement Tuesday, suggesting its executives hadn’t prohibited the interview but instead had informed Colbert of legal guidance that it could trigger the FCC equal-time rule for other candidates in the race.
The interview segment was posted on the show’s YouTube channel, billed as an “online-exclusive interview,” where it has received more than 5 million views.
The CBS statement rankled Colbert. In his show Tuesday, he told his audience that he had never before been asked to abide by the equal-time rule in over two decades of hosting late night shows.
“I was ready to let the whole thing go, until a few hours ago,” he said, holding up CBS’s statement. “This is a surprisingly small piece of paper considering how many butts it’s trying to cover,” he said, also criticizing the company for publishing it without consulting him first.
“For the record, I’m not mad. I really don’t want an adversarial relationship with the network,” he continued. “I’m just so surprised that this giant global corporation would not stand up to these bullies.”
Colbert then likened the statement to dog poop, crumpling the paper and scooping it into a bag to audience cheers.
Neither CBS nor Paramount Skydance immediately responded to emailed requests for comment early Wednesday.
In the past year, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has remolded the federal agency into a speech enforcer tackling perceived liberal bias in the media industry. Under his leadership, the FCC has investigated media companies, threatening those that do not abide by rarely enforced rules and invoking little-known policies, such as its controversial “news distortion” policy.
Last year, Carr drew bipartisan criticism for his comments suggesting the FCC could take action against another late-night host, Jimmy Kimmel for his comments in the wake of the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
The latest dispute stems from a public notice issued by the FCC last month, asserting that daytime and nighttime talk shows would have to apply for exemptions to the equal-time rule for each program.
At the time, the FCC’s lone Democrat, Anna M. Gomez, called the notice “misleading.” On Tuesday, she suggested the FCC did not have the legal authority “to pressure broadcasters for political purposes.”
Last summer, the FCC gave a green light to an $8 billion deal for David Ellison’s Skydance to buy CBS parent company Paramount.
The FCC did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Wednesday.
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