The cable network that is more Fox than Fox – and that Trump promotes

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This is a way to interpret his tweets.

One America News Network, or OANN, is a right-wing cable news channel that wants to attack Fox. In the past two months, Trump has tweeted about OANN seven times – after spending two years without marking the channel.

OANN has fans, but it's not a widely known brand – which is one more reason why the president moves him is remarkable. When he does not attack "enemy" news agencies, the president promotes the media that he approves, and OANN is clearly in the last camp.

OANN leaders have encouraged presidential endorsements in their conversations with White House staff – and sometimes in public on Twitter.

Robert Herring, CEO of the channel, regularly associates Trump in tweets. "Mr. Speaker, our young employees want to thank you for their hard work," he wrote in one of his posts last month.

The praise goes both ways. On Monday, the President thanked Fox and OANN for their consecutive tweets. First of all, he congratulated "Fox & Friends" for his notes, then he congratulated @OANN for the great work you are doing and the leap forward in evaluations. "

The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics monitoring group in Washington said Trump's promotional behavior is troubling.

"Dedicate your show to support the president and he will use the power of the presidency to increase your ratings and hurt your competitors (or at least, he says)," CREW said Monday.

Enjoying Trump's promotion

For OANN, being perceived as pro-Trump is a key part of the business model.

For example, the channel advertises an ad-free cover of every Trump rally – and sometimes displays start-up speakers.

He wants recognition in exchange. In March, the channel's main Twitter account complained when Trump thanked "his supporters in the media" without mentioning OANN. "Not a single mention of One America News – one of his biggest supporters … @OANN is calling bulls ***," the tweet said.

The chain, headquartered in San Diego, launched in 2013 a very difficult market for independent cable channels.

Distributors are reluctant to add more channels to an already saturated cable bundle. That is why, six years later, OANN is still relatively obscure. The platforms owned by Verizon and AT & T carry OANN, but other distributors like Comcast and Charter do not, so the channel is not available in most homes.

But Robert Herring and his son Charles, president of OANN, are pushing. They see the channel as an alternative to Fox and all other television news options, including CNN.

Like Fox, OANN is a combination of fiery newscasts and TV talk shows. Many hours of the day are just an old-fashioned information wheel, with a heavy dose of international headlines. Debate broadcasts and unintelligible segments featuring Jack Posobiec, a well-known pro-Trump Internet personality, are mixed up. Sometimes the content deviates to the territory of the conspiracy theory.

The staff is composed of young journalists and committed supporters. The chief correspondent of the White House, for example, is a former actress who is both a journalist and right-wing commentator, Emerald Robinson.

Trump greeted him by name during an informal Q & A with reporters Tuesday morning.

"How are you Emerald," he says, inviting him to ask a question. "Go on, what's up?"

Rate the popularity of OANN

OANN does not subscribe to Nielsen's hearing, which is usually a sign that the audience of a channel is quite small. But Charles Herring said in an e-mail to CNN Business that there is a different reason: "We refuse to PAY Nielsen's data on the basis of excessive price".

Instead, Herring relies on data from the ComScore audience to say that OANN was the "fourth-ranked cable television network" in March, behind Fox, MSNBC and CNN.

Nielsen – the agreed motto for the television sector – does not support this claim, since OANN is not rated by it. But the data from ComScore can explain how Trump heard about a "big evaluation leap" to OANN.

Herring said he had shared his data directly with Trump at the end of 2018 and had also had "recent conversations with key White House officials."

No one at Fox seems to worry about the competition. There are several other Fox winners on the market, including Newsmax and BlazeTV, but Fox's ratings remain strong.

"Trump's recent promotion of OANN did not come at the expense of Fox News," Vox's Aaron Rupar wrote Monday. "But this indicates that Trump is looking these days to amplify other outlets that cover it favorably and reliably reinforce its arguments."

Trump has repeatedly shown that he wanted to offer multiple alternatives to mainstream media that he likes to hate.

Other Republicans also see reasons to hook OANN. Senator Rand Paul tweeted about the channel on Tuesday, saying "OANN brings the variety we need so much" and "real news".

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