Section 315 of the Communications Act (Equal Opportunities)

Section 315 of the Communications Act of 1934, codified at 47 U.S.C. § 315, requires a broadcast station that lets one legally qualified candidate for public office use its airtime to afford “equal opportunities” to every other candidate for that office. It is commonly called the equal time rule, although the FCC applies it as a requirement of comparable time and placement rather than identical airtime. Because it decides which candidate appearances on broadcast television and radio obligate a station to offer time to opponents, it applies to candidate appearances on news, interview and entertainment programs.

Legal Background

The requirement was enacted with the Communications Act on June 19, 1934. The same subsection bars the station from censoring what a candidate says, and does not oblige it to sell or give time to any candidate in the first place. In Farmers Educational & Cooperative Union v. WDAY (1959), the Supreme Court held 5–4 that because a station cannot censor a candidate’s broadcast, it cannot be held liable under state libel law for defamatory statements in it.

For years the FCC treated a candidate’s appearance in a routine newscast as outside the rule. In 1959, in a ruling on a complaint by Chicago mayoral candidate Lar Daly, it changed course and held that any newscast appearance by a candidate was a “use” of the station. Congress responded the same year with Pub. L. 86-274, which the Justice Department later described as intended to overrule the Lar Daly decision.

Key Provisions

Equal opportunities. When a station gives or sells time to one candidate, opposing candidates for the same office may request comparable time and placement. Free time given to a candidate must be recorded in the station’s political file, which lets opponents learn of it and make a request.

The four news exemptions. Since 1959, a candidate’s appearance on any of the following is not a “use” of the station:

1. a bona fide newscast;
2. a bona fide news interview;
3. a bona fide news documentary, if the candidate’s appearance is incidental to its subject; and
4. on-the-spot coverage of a bona fide news event, including political conventions.

The statute leaves the scope of each exemption to the FCC. In deciding whether a program is a bona fide news interview, the FCC asks whether it is regularly scheduled, whether the broadcaster or an independent producer controls it, and whether decisions about content, participants and format rest on newsworthiness rather than an intent to advance or harm a candidacy. Its rulings are program-specific.

Rates. Amendments in 1952 and 1972 regulated what stations may charge candidates. Today a candidate pays no more than the station’s lowest unit charge for the same class of time during the 45 days before a primary and the 60 days before a general or special election. Since 2002, a federal candidate whose ad refers to an opponent keeps that rate only if the ad includes the candidate’s own statement approving it.

Political file. The 2002 amendments also require stations to keep a public record of requests to buy time made by or for candidates, or about a political matter of national importance, including the rate charged and when the spots aired.

Coverage. The statute defines a broadcasting station to include a community antenna (cable) system, but the FCC’s 2026 guidance states that the equal opportunities regulations do not apply to cable channels or other forms of distribution. Online video is outside the rule.

Legal Challenges and Evolution

Congress suspended part of the requirement for the 1960 presidential and vice-presidential campaigns (Pub. L. 86-677). In Chisholm v. FCC (1976), the D.C. Circuit described Congress as having chosen “legislative generality” over a list of exempt and non-exempt uses, leaving the scope of the exemptions to the Commission. The question of candidates who are also on-air personalities arose in Branch v. FCC (D.C. Cir. 1987): the FCC held, and the court agreed, that a Sacramento television reporter’s on-air work while he was a candidate was a “use” of his station, and the Solicitor General opposed Supreme Court review. A 2024 Congressional Research Service analysis notes that the Supreme Court has never ruled on the equal time rule’s constitutionality, although it has upheld other broadcast-specific requirements on the ground of spectrum scarcity.

The talk-show question turned on a 2006 Media Bureau ruling that the interview portion of “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” was a bona fide news interview, the first such finding for a late-night talk show and contrary to a 1960 Commission decision on Jack Paar’s “Tonight Show.” Networks relied on it afterward for candidate interviews on late-night and daytime programs.

On January 21, 2026, the Media Bureau issued a public notice (DA 26-68) stating that the 2006 decision was limited to that program as it existed at the time, that the FCC had “not been presented with any evidence” that the interview portion of any current late-night or daytime talk show would qualify, and that a program motivated by partisan purposes would not qualify. It invited programs seeking assurance to petition for a declaratory ruling. The notice did not amend the rule or overrule earlier decisions. Democratic Commissioner Anna Gomez called it “an escalation in this FCC’s ongoing campaign to censor and control speech.”

Digital Politics Implications

Because the rule reaches broadcast stations only, the same candidate interview can carry an equal-time obligation when it airs on a broadcast station and none when it is distributed online or on a cable channel.

Recent equal time disputes have involved short appearances. After Vice President Kamala Harris appeared in the opening sketch of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” on November 2, 2024, Commissioner Brendan Carr called it a “clear and blatant effort to evade the FCC’s Equal Time rule.” NBC filed an equal time notice reporting a 90-second appearance without charge and gave Donald Trump’s campaign airtime during its NASCAR broadcast the following day. In February 2026, Carr, by then FCC chairman, said the agency had an enforcement action underway over an appearance by Texas Senate candidate James Talarico on ABC’s “The View.”