Network Minsinfo

It's Almost as if ATT Ma Bell Break Up Didn't Really Bring a Golden Age of Competition and Higher Standard of Living for All. ATT Busted Secretly Bankrolling Radical Right Wing Media.

REUTERS Special Report: How AT&T helped build far-right One America News. (Oct, 2021)

“AT&T has been a crucial source of funds for OAN, providing tens of millions of dollars in revenue, a Reuters investigation found last year. Ninety percent of OAN's revenue came from a contract with AT&T-owned television platforms, including DirecTV, according to 2020 sworn testimony by an OAN accountant.” Reuters (Jan, 2022)

“The Reuters report drew calls from some liberal groups for AT&T and DirecTV to drop OAN, a favorite of former President Donald Trump, because the network has become a key source of false claims about the election and COVID vaccinations.” Reuters (Jan, 2022)

This is quite likely a great direct action success story. Since the October report, customers have voiced they're pissed. Some dropped accounts, snide remarks across the culture.

–MGoff, Editor

Published by
AFP

Former US president Donald Trump regularly called on Chanel Rion of OAN (pictured April 2020) during his press briefings

San Francisco (AFP) – Subscription television service DirecTV has decided not to renew its contract with One America News Network (OAN), an ultra-conservative, conspiratorial US channel that backs former US president Donald Trump.

“We informed (OAN owner) Herring Networks that, following a routine internal review, we do not plan to enter into a new contract when our current agreement expires,” a spokesman for DirecTV told AFP Friday.

The deal is due to expire in April, according to a source familiar with the matter.

DirecTV, which is owned by US telecom giant AT&T, did not provide further details for its decision.

OAN is one of the new ultra-conservative players in television news that are trying to nibble away at the market share of Fox News.

Like Newsmax or Real America's Voice, they refused to recognize Donald Trump's defeat in the November 2020 presidential election, instead relaying unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about electoral fraud that were propagated by the former president and his supporters.

In mid-November 2020, for instance, OAN presenter Christina Bobb accused the Democratic Party of preparing “a coup” against Trump.

Trump himself invited his supporters to switch to OAN and Newsmax, and more and more leading Republican figures are appearing on the channels.

OAN saw its audiences climb in the wake of the election, but DirecTV's decision is a serious blow because it is the channel's largest distributor, according to US media.

OAN did not immediately respond to a request for comment from AFP.

A year ago, when Trump supporters stormed Congress in an attempt to stop the certification of Democrat Joe Biden's victory, OAN and Newsmax denounced — without any supporting evidence — what they called the infiltration of small groups of ultra-leftists into the crowd of Trump loyalists.