FCC nominee Gigi Sohn said she thinks the agency should investigate DirecTV’s deplatforming of right-leaning cable news channels Newsmax and One America News Network. That came in a back-and-forth with Senate Commerce Committee chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) Tuesday during Sohn’s third confirmation hearing before that committee.
DirecTV said a California judge has stricken the central claims in a breach of contract lawsuit filed by Herring Networks over DirecTV’s decision to drop the One America News cable network in January 2022. The ruling was made Jan. 13 by Judge John Meyer of the Superior Court of California in San Diego County.
Banished by large pay TV operators and existentially threatened by lawsuits, far right channel aims to be back in 100 broadcast TV markets by the end of the year.
One America News Network is returning to cable after two other distributors ended contracts with the right-wing network. OAN will broadcast its 18 hours of live news and 24/7 coverage with Zito Media, a telecommunications company that serves over 75,000 subscribers across 100 communities in 22 states, according to its website. Zito Media is not available in any of the states that house OAN’s news bureaus in Washington, D.C., New York, California and Florida.
Verizon’s decision to drop One American News from its channel listings is raising questions about the future of conservative cable news networks that have sought to position themselves as competition to Fox News.
Exclusives
The other shoe appears ready to drop for One America News Network, which lost its biggest pay TV carriage provider, DirecTV, back in April. The controversial far right cable network, known for its reporting of conspiracy theories and its avid support for former president Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” about bogus 2020 election fraud, sees a deal with its last major MVPD partner, Verizon Fios, set to expire on July 30.
NEW YORK (AP) — A Colorado judge on Friday denied motions to dismiss a defamation lawsuit filed by an election systems worker against former President Donald Trump’s campaign, two of […]
DirecTV will drop far-right cable news outlet One America News Network on Tuesday, April 4. The satellite TV behemoth said earlier this year that it planned to no longer carry OAN, which was criticized for spreading false information about the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 presidential election and its general spread of conspiracy theories, once its contract expires. OAN began airing on DirecTV in April 2017.
One America News might have to shut down because of DirecTV’s decision to drop the right-wing network from its channel lineup, OAN said in a lawsuit against DirecTV and its owner AT&T. DirecTV recently said it will drop OAN after their carriage contract expires in early April. DirecTV will also drop AWE (A Wealth of Entertainment), as OAN and AWE are both owned by Herring Networks. Herring alleges breach of contract and other violations were committed by AT&T, DirecTV and AT&T Board Chairman William Kennard.
Will DirecTV Drop Push OAN To Streaming?
Beneath all the ideological noise is a simple business truth — pay TV is less and less able to support niche channels across the political dial.
One America News Network has declared war against AT&T’s DirecTV and its board chairman, former FCC Chairman Bill Kennard, following the distributor’s decision to drop the channel from its lineup in April. Dan Ball, host of OAN’s Real America, slammed AT&T on his show Jan. 17, but went beyond that to say that OAN was launching a campaign against the distributor and asking his viewers to dig up dirt on Kennard, which he said he would “love to see” and report.
Smartmatic, an election technology company that faced baseless accusations of rigging the 2020 election, earlier filed a similar lawsuit against Fox News.
A new national poll from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) published on Monday shows that 31% of Americans believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. That figure includes an overwhelming 82% of Americans who trust Fox News more than any other media outlet, 97% of those who trust One America News Network and Newsmax, and two-thirds of Republicans generally.
MSNBC and Rachel Maddow have again prevailed in a libel suit brought by Herring Networks, the owner of One America News Network (OAN). On Tuesday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a district court’s ruling that Maddow’s statement about the Trump-friendly network isn’t actionable.
Dominion Voting Systems has filed defamation lawsuits against Newsmax, One America News Network and Patrick Byrne, the former CEO of Overstock, over their advancement of conspiracy theories that company had a role in rigging the results of the 2020 presidential election. The lawsuits against One America, Newsmax and Byrne each seek more than $1.6 billion in damages.
A recent OAN segment said there were “serious doubts about who’s actually president,” and another blamed “anti-Trump extremists” for the Capitol attack.
For One America News Network and Newsmax, the Georgia runoffs present an opportunity to capitalize on post-presidential election audience gains, which they’ve boosted thanks to promotion from President Donald Trump. For weeks, the outlets pushed baseless theories about election fraud in an effort to be No. 2 behind dominant cable news channel Fox News.
Eric Coomer, security director at the Colorado-based Dominion Voting Systems, said he wants his life back after being named in false charges as a key actor in “rigging” the election for President-elect Joe Biden. There has been no evidence that the election was rigged. His lawsuit, filed Tuesday in district court in Denver County, Colorado, names the Trump campaign, lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, conservative columnist Michelle Malkin, the website Gateway Pundit, Colorado conservative activist Joseph Oltmann, and conservative media outlets Newsmax and One America News Network.
YouTube has barred One America News Network, a cable TV news channel, from posting new videos for a week after it uploaded a video promoting a cure for COVID-19. “After careful review, we removed a video from OANN and issued a ‘strike’ on the channel for violating our Covid-19 misinformation policy, which prohibits content claiming there’s a guaranteed cure,” said Ivy Choi, a YouTube spokesperson.
On Monday before his rally in Sanford, Fla., President Trump ramped up his attacks on Fox News and promoted some competitors including C-SPAN and conservative outlets One America News Network and Newsmax. “@FoxNews allows more negative ads on me than practically all of the other networks combined. Not like the old days, but we will win even bigger than 2016. Roger Ailes was the GREATEST!,” the president tweeted.
According to sources, an investor group aligned with President Trump’s son Don Jr. and the Dallas-based Hicks family has acquired a major stake in One America News Network, the fledgling conservative cable news channel that features hosts like Jack Posobiec, a chief promoter of the Pizzagate conspiracy. “[RNC co-chair] Tommy Hicks and Don Jr. have been looking to buy a station for Trump TV,” said one source briefed on the talks. “This is all about building a Fox competitor. Trump is really aiming to take down Fox,” the person briefed on the deal said.
Allies of President Trump are pursuing an effort to acquire right-leaning news channel One America News Network, according to people familiar with the matter, in a bid to shake up a conservative media market that has been dominated by Fox News. The investment firm Hicks Equity Partners is looking to acquire the channel and is pitching other wealthy GOP donors to arrange a bid of roughly $250 million for the channel’s parent company, the people said.
