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NBC Gives Trump Airtime After Harris SNL Appearance

Online Niel November 5, 2024

Left: Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, appears on NBC

Left: Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, presidential nominee, appears on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” with Maya Rudolph, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024, in New York. Harris made an unannounced trip to New York to appear to be briefly stepping away from the battleground states where he campaigned just three days before the election (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin). Right: Donald Trump in a political ad that aired on NBC on Nov. 3, 2024 (X/Donald J. Trump).

After a Federal Communications Commission commissioner accused NBC of violating the agency’s “Equal Time” rule to allow Kamala Harris to appear on Saturday Night Live, the network said Donald Trump approximately 120 seconds worth of free airtime after a NASCAR race and an NFL game.

Trump appeared in two 60-second videos after the race and after NBC’s Sunday Night Football broadcast. He also posted the announcement on his account on X, formerly Twitter.

“We are two days away from the most important election in the history of our country,” Trump said. “We need to save our country and it needs saving, it’s in a very bad shape.”

pic.twitter.com/n9O9bZbQur

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2024

Also Sunday, NBC filed an equal-time notice with the FCC, saying Harris appeared for about 1 minute and 30 seconds on SNL during her skit with comedian Maya Rudolph as part of the show a few days earlier. Tuesday’s presidential election.

A Trump spokesman told NPR’s David Folkenflik that NBC and Comcast reached out on Sunday to offer the time, and the Republican nominee filmed a video following a rally.

Statement from NBC on the SNL conflict:

We accepted the Trump campaign’s request for equal time consistent with our regulatory obligations.

(Background: Trump spots appeared on Nascar and NFL postgame shows.)

— David Folkenflik (@davidfolkenflik) November 4, 2024

NBC told Folkenflik it followed the rule by giving Trump air time on Sunday.

Like Law&Crime previously reportedFCC Senior Republican Commissioner Brendan Carr said in a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter) that NBC violated the agency’s “Equal Time” rule.

“This is a clear and blatant effort to evade the FCC’s equal time rule,” Carr wrote. “The purpose of this rule is to prevent exactly this type of biased and partisan conduct — a licensed broadcaster using the public airwaves to exert influence over a candidate on the eve of an election. Unless the broadcaster has given equal time to other qualifying campaigns.”

Carr was nominated for the first time by Trump and then again by President Biden. He is one of five commissioners, including a chairman.

In general, the equal time rule requires broadcasters to give the same amount of airtime to one candidate as to the other. If a candidate appears on a broadcast channel, he must give the other candidates the opportunity to appear for the same period of time. Newscasts, political ads and documentaries are exempt from the rule. According to Carr, the FCC chairman under the Obama administration in the 2016 election said the agency would enforce the rule. Posts filed equal opportunity notices when Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton appeared on the show, Carr said.

“Federal law requires broadcasters to offer comparable time and placement to all legally qualified applicants when the equal time rule is triggered,” Carr wrote. “With just days before the election, NBC appears to have structured this appearance in a way that circumvents these requirements. What comparable time and placement can I offer to all other qualified candidates?”

News of Harris’ appearance broke Saturday night, just hours before the show. Her part of the skit lasted about two and a half minutes, ending with her and Rudolph together shouting the famous line “Live from New York, it’s Saturday night”. Carr pointed out that SNL creator Lorne Michaels said The Hollywood Reporter that neither Trump nor Harris were expected to appear on the show.

“You can’t get the actual people running because of election laws and equal time provisions,” Michaels said. “You can’t have the major candidates without having all the candidates, and there are a lot of minor candidates that are only on the ballot in, say, three states, and that gets very complicated.”

The equal time rule comes up from time to time, especially with celebrities or TV personalities. Some TV stations ran the movie “Dr. Oz” TV show in the middle of it eventually unsuccessful bid for a seat in the US Senate in Pennsylvania in 2022.

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