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- One America News was AT & T’s original idea, according to a Reuters investigation.
- The founder of OAN said in a 2019 deposition that the concept originated from AT&T.
- Reuters found a “lucrative relationship” between the two despite OAN’s blatant conspiracy theories.
AT&T was instrumental in the creation and continued support of One America News, the far-right media outlet that has built its coverage around electoral conspiracy theories and COVID disinformation, creating a “lucrative relationship” between the two companies, according to a Reuters investigation published Wednesday.
Between the Election 2020 and the January 6 uprising, OAN received a boost in its relatively minor notes and has increasingly become the preferred cable network of former President Donald Trump.
Despite his longtime warm relationship with Fox News, Trump and his surrogates found a home for their patently bogus conspiracy theories about a rigged election on OAN – and to a similar extent, Newsmax – before the two were confronted costly lawsuits from Dominion Voting Systems.
However, the Reuters investigation found that these legal tangles did not prevent AT&T executives from supporting the network as it faced a potentially catastrophic financial scenario.
OAN founder and CEO Richard Herring Sr. revealed the importance of AT & T’s contributions to the network’s survival in a 2019 court testimony, which was reviewed by Reuters.
Herring said he was offered $ 250 million for OAN and that the concept of the network was AT & T’s original idea, not his own. Since then, AT&T has remained a vital source of revenue for OAN, providing tens of millions of dollars through deals to broadcast its channel on television platforms, according to court documents.
Ninety percent of OAN’s revenue came from a contract with AT&T-owned television platforms like DirecTV, an OAN accountant revealed in 2020, according to Reuters; AT&T bought DirecTV in 2015 and separated them in August 2021. Without DIRECTV’s agreement, the sworn accountant said, the network’s value “would be zero.”
“If Herring Networks, for example, were to lose or not be renewed on DirecTV, the company would shut down tomorrow,” OAN lawyer Patrick Nellies told the court, according to the transcript of the deposition.
Jim Greer, spokesperson for AT&T, said DirecTV had a contract to transport OAN and took issue with Reuters’ characterization that it funds OAN. In a statement, he did not respond to claims that AT&T executives first pitched the idea for the Conservative Channel to Herring:
AT&T has never had a financial stake in OAN’s success and does not “fund” OAN. When AT&T acquired DIRECTV, we refused to offer OAN on this platform, so OAN sued DIRECTV. Four years ago, DIRECTV entered into a commercial distribution agreement with OAN, as it did with hundreds of other channels and as OAN did with the other television providers that broadcast its programming.
DIRECTV offers a wide variety of programming, including many news channels that offer a variety of views, but it does not dictate or control the programming on the channels. Any suggestion to the contrary is false. The decision whether or not to renew the transport contract when it expires will rest with DIRECTV, which is now a separate company outside of AT&T.
One of OAN’s biggest challenges is that it doesn’t air on as many cable bundles as Fox News or CNN and MSNBC, reaching only about a quarter of the estimated 121 million TVs nationwide, according to Reuters. Importantly, neither Nielsen nor Comscore publish OAN valuation figures because the channel is so poorly distributed.
In the week of the insurgency, OAN’s chief information officer told staff he had achieved his “best grades ever,” but did not provide a figure, according to Reuters.
An OAN spokesperson did not return Insider’s request for comment.
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