NBC violated election rule, says FCC commissioner

The commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission says that NBC News has violated an important election rule for media outlets. 

The rule, according to Fox News, is the Equal Time Rule.

Per the outlet:

The Federal Communications Commission’s equal-time rule was established in 1934 and requires radio and television broadcast stations to provide the same amount of time for competing political candidates. There are exceptions to the rule such as newscasts, documentaries and political debates.

The commissioner - Brendan Carr - alleges that NBC violated the rule by recently allowing Harris to appear on Saturday Night Live. 

A clear violation

In Carr's opinion, this situation was a clear violation of the rule.

Carr said:

This has all the appearances of, at least some leadership at NBC, at SNL, making clear that they wanted to weigh-in in favor of one candidate before the election. That's exactly why, for decades, we've had an equal time rule on the book, is to prevent that. Because remember, broadcasters are placed in a special position of trust. They're not just like any other person with a soapbox on the corner. They have a license from the federal government that obligates them to operate in the public interest.

The commissioner went on to argue that NBC tried to go about this in such a way as to "evade" the equal time rule.

He said:

NBC has structured this in a way that's plainly designed to evade the FCC's rules. We're talking 50 hours before Election Day starts, without any notice to other candidates, as far as I can tell. And after previously coming out and saying they weren't going to do this precisely because they did not believe that they could do this consistent with election laws and the FCC's equal time rule.

Carr concluded by calling upon FCC members to speak up and to figure out how to penalize NBC for its violation.

What now?

At the time of this writing, it is not exactly clear how the FCC is going to handle this situation.

It is not clear whether NBC will be penalized, and it is not clear what that penalty would look like.

NBC, for its part, is trying to avoid being penalized by giving former President Donald Trump some free air time.

According to the Hollywood Reporter:

NBC is giving former President Donald Trump's campaign free commercial time in response to Vice President Kamala Harris' appearance on Saturday Night Live, including an unusual ad during Sunday's NASCAR coverage, a source familiar with the matter says.

Whether this is enough to keep NBC from being penalized remains unclear.