Comment Addressing Deliberations on ABC Asking the FCC to Declare The View Qualifies as a Bona Fide News Interview Program

Today, I filed a comment to the Federal Communications Commission on whether The View should continue to be categorized as a bona fide news program.

June 22, 2026

VIA ELECTRONIC FILING

Media Bureau Federal Communications Commission

45 L Street NE Washington, DC 20554

Re: FCC's Media Bureau Seeks Comment on Petition by Disney's ABC Asking the FCC to Declare that The View Qualifies as a Bona Fide News Interview Program and Thus Is Exempt from the Statutory Equal Opportunities Requirements  Docket No. 26-124

Dear Ms. Mullarkey:

I write in response to the Federal Communications Commission’s public notice seeking comment on whether or not The View qualifies as a bona fide news program. As the FCC defined it in your request, such a news program “could have political candidates on air if, among other things, the candidates are chosen based on their newsworthiness rather than on the intention to oppose or support a particular candidate” and that “that the content, format and participants not be intended for the political advantage of candidates.”

One of Disney’s main arguments put forward was that the FCC had already declared The View to be a bona fide news program back in 2002, writing “[b]ased on the record before us, we conclude that the program ‘The View’ qualifies for the bona fide news interview exemption.” However, that exemption, which was drafted by a staffer as a response to ABC’s request, no longer applies.

To begin with, The View in 2002 was in many respects a different show than its current iteration. Only one of the six current permanent hosts, Joy Behar, was hosting the show in 2002. Partisanship was also significantly less severe; politics was not a constant, and as numerous studies have shown, American political polarization has intensified severely in that time.

The View has likewise become an incredibly partisan show. Five of the six hosts are outspoken Democrats. Just two months ago, the hosts cheered the ultimately failed effort by Virginia Democrats to redistrict, with Behar saying “It’s fun to watch the Democrats find their testicularity, you know? And with some of the Republicans turning on Trump also.” Another host, Sunny Hostin, made clear where her loyalties lie when she said, “I’ve got to tell you, when [Republicans] go low, I think you go to the Earth’s crust.” Only one, Alyssa Farah Griffin, is a nominal Republican, though she is a critic of the incumbent administration.

Their personal political beliefs would not endanger the program being a bona fide news program if they did not allow those beliefs to interfere with the program’s content. However, by constantly expressing their opinions – as opposed to simply offering a forum for news discussion – and with all six hosts having the same opinions, they make clear the program is not a bona fide news program. As the FCC wrote, television programs which wish to be a bona fide news program must not operate on behalf of “any narrow partisan, political interest.”

The View fails to reach this bar. Unlike actual bona fide news programs, The View is rated TV-PG. This is because news programs often include breaking news or difficult to rate elements; a given day can cover milquetoast stories or particularly disturbing ones. The program, by contrast, is an opinion-based daytime opinion show. When conservatives supportive of the administration appear on the show, the conversation is always hostile. Contrast Vice President JD Vance’s recent appearance, in which he endured a bevy of hostile and skeptical questioning, with Texas Democrat Senate candidate James Talarico’s positive reception by the hosts.

The data bears this out. The View’s guest list from the last ten years reveals a higher ratio of left-leaning guests over right-leaning guests. Over the last ten years, Democrat and liberal commentators outnumbered Republicans and right-leaning commentators by an over three-to-one ratio.

This does not divide between the personal political beliefs of the right-leaning guests, many of whom have been critical of the current administration as a whole. Further, it does not seek to quantify the positive or negative nature of the interviews, which are typically significantly more hostile toward pro-administration guests. Many non-political individuals, such as Bad Bunny or Beyoncé, clearly were also biased toward Democrats. Bad Bunny’s interview, for example, focused on his support for “important causes” crucial to the “Latinx” community, such as LGBTQ rights.

On cable television, this would be of no concern. But The View, and ABC, wishes to operate using public airwaves. And the data clearly shows that they are operating under a “narrow partisan, political interest.” Disney tries to argue that their show relies upon newsworthiness as the determining factor, but this is difficult to believe. Republicans in the past decade have run the executive branch of the United States government for a majority of the time: from 2017-2021 and from 2025 until the current period. Even when they did not – for the second half of 2016 and from 2021-2025 – they controlled at least one half of the legislative branch for all but 2021-2023. While that does not automatically make Republicans more newsworthy than Democrats, it is inexplicable to argue that Democrats would have been over three times as newsworthy in that time – unless The View was approaching it from a “partisan, political interest.”

The relevant hosting and guest invitation decisions on The View are clearly an attempt to oppose or support particular candidates and political points of view. A bona fide news program would simply not make such decisions unless it were trying to push a particular angle. 

That this even needs to be argued underscores how far public programming has gotten from its original intention. The View is not alone in being a particularly biased show hiding under the concept of being bona fide news. Public airwaves have for too long become a tool for left-wing advocates, who can use appearances to present themselves as neutral political observers. This in turn has helped make it seem, as Stephen Colbert once “joked,” that “reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

In closing, the FCC should act to remove the bona fide news designation from The View, an opinion show masquerading as a news program.

Sincerely,

Anthony J. Constantini

Policy Director

The Bull Moose Project

Washington, DC