The FCC confirmed it has opened enforcement proceedings against ABC’s “The View” for alleged equal time violations. Chairman Brendan Carr told Fox News the commission is also examining CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” for similar issues. Read the full story at Variety.
Whether or not these actions result in fines or programming changes, they mark a new kind of regulatory risk for broadcast: one that reaches past licensing and indecency into the editorial judgment of talk and late-night shows.
Also on Mediabistro
Below the broadcast drama, the infrastructure supporting specialized editorial work is quietly disappearing. Getty Images and Shutterstock are merging. Newspaper book sections are vanishing. The number of buyers for high-quality niche content keeps shrinking.
The growth is somewhere else entirely: Netflix animation pipelines, international format licensing, and production models that treat content as repeatable product rather than singular work.
The FCC and CBS Are Two Different Problems With the Same Outcome
Equal time rules have existed since 1934, but enforcement has historically focused on local stations and candidate appearances during campaign windows. Applying them to daytime talk and late-night comedy is a category shift.
If the FCC follows through with penalties, networks face a choice: build compliance infrastructure around every guest booking (expensive, slow) or pull back on political content in entertainment programming (creatively limiting, potentially audience-damaging). Either way, producers and talent bookers inherit new friction.
CBS’s problems are self-inflicted but equally destabilizing. As Poynter details, the network has cycled through on-air talent changes, management turnover, and strategic reversals at a pace that signals something deeper than bad luck. When Anderson Cooper’s potential move to CBS fell apart, it was another data point in a pattern: the network can’t execute on its own stated priorities.
Fewer Buyers, Fewer Outlets, Less Leverage
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority flagged concerns about the Getty Images and Shutterstock merger, specifically around editorial image licensing. According to Press Gazette, the CMA believes the combined entity could reduce competition in the market for editorial photos used by publishers.
Editorial photographers work on tighter margins, shorter deadlines, and more specialized assignments than commercial stock contributors. This merger matters because it removes negotiating leverage. Three major buyers for editorial work? Photographers can play them against each other. One dominant buyer controlling both Getty and Shutterstock’s editorial networks? Freelancers take the rate offered or don’t work.
A parallel contraction is happening in book coverage. Poynter spoke with Laurie Hertzel, former books editor at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, about the collapse of newspaper book sections.
What’s disappearing isn’t just reviews. It’s the entire infrastructure that connected authors, publishers, independent bookstores, and readers at the local level. Newspapers that once employed dedicated book critics and maintained relationships with regional publishers now run syndicated content or nothing at all.
For freelance critics, this market is simply gone. Authors lose discoverability. Readers lose curation. Critics lose income. Publishers lose one of the few remaining channels for breaking out books that don’t have six-figure marketing budgets.
Animation, Format Licensing, and the Global Production Pipeline
Netflix’s “Strip Law,” created by Cullen Crawford (ClickHole, “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”), is an animated comedy set in Las Vegas. As Variety notes in its review, animation gives Crawford’s joke-dense writing room to breathe in ways live-action sitcoms can’t afford. Sets are unlimited. Visual gags are cheap. The show maintains a pace and density that would require prohibitively expensive production design in live-action.
This is why comedy talent is flowing toward animation. Crawford’s background is in late-night writing, the traditional training ground for sitcom showrunners. Adult animation offers better creative leverage: ambitious, visually complex comedy without the budget and scheduling constraints of live-action. Netflix, HBO Max, Hulu, and Amazon are all expanding adult animation slates because the format travels internationally without dubbing friction and production timelines are more predictable.
For writers and producers coming out of sketch, late-night, or digital comedy, animation is a primary path for developing original IP that can scale globally.
The other place production energy is concentrating: format licensing. All3Media International announced that “The Traitors” has now been licensed in 40 territories, with Indonesia becoming the latest market to commission a local version.
This is how money is being made in media. Create a repeatable format, license it territory by territory, collect fees from each local production.
The Prince Andrew Story Is a Masterclass in Breaking News Mechanics
A freelance photographer happened to be at Sandringham when police arrived to arrest Prince Andrew. That image became the visual anchor for a massive breaking news story, and the speed with which UK media outlets named Andrew (despite the legal risks of identifying someone before charges are filed) tells you a lot about how news judgment works under pressure.
Press Gazette breaks down the legal calculus that allowed outlets to name Andrew. The decision rested on his status as a public figure, the level of public interest, and the strength of sourcing confirming his identity.
This is the kind of real-time editorial and legal coordination that separates publications with strong counsel and experienced editors from those that either hesitate too long or publish recklessly. For journalists covering sensitive stories involving public figures: the decision to name someone requires coordination between newsroom and counsel and has to be defensible in real time. The outlets that got it right had systems in place before the story broke.
What This Means
If you’re in broadcast, regulatory and institutional instability are material factors in career planning.
If you’re a freelance photographer or critic, the number of buyers for your work is shrinking, and the consolidation isn’t finished.
If you’re a comedy writer or unscripted producer, the growth is in animation and international format licensing.
The industry is reorganizing around different economics. Animation writing, format development, international production coordination: that’s where new jobs are being created. Book criticism and editorial photography are where old ones are disappearing.
Browse open roles on Mediabistro to see where production companies are actually hiring.
For employers building teams in animation, unscripted, or international production: the talent pipeline is full of experienced professionals coming out of contracting sectors. Post a job on Mediabistro to reach them before your competitors do.
This media news roundup is automatically curated to keep our community up to date on interesting happenings in the creative, media, and publishing professions. It may contain factual errors and should be read for general and informational purposes only. Please refer to the original source of each news item for specific inquiries.
Topics:
media-news
