DirecTV Drops Conservative Channel One America News
By Movieguide® Staff
One of the largest U.S. pay-TV providers, DirecTV, announced that they plan to cut ties with conservative news group One America News Network.
The satellite-TV provider told OAN that they would not renew its contract with the parent company, Herring Networks.
“We informed Herring Networks that, following a routine internal review, we do not plan to enter into a new contract when our current agreement expires,” the company said in a statement acquired by Bloomberg.
Bloomberg reported:
OAN depends heavily on DirecTV, its largest distributor, to reach its audience. The channel is still carried on Verizon FiOS and smaller pay-TV providers, according to its website. The broadcast can also be streamed via an online-TV service called KlowdTV. OAN has never been carried by Comcast Corp., Charter Communications Inc. or Dish Network Corp., three other major providers.
DirecTV, which is owned by AT&T Inc. and TPG via a joint venture, has offered OAN to customers since April 2017 after Herring Networks won a lawsuit that forced the satellite-TV provider to carry the channels.
OAN came under fire after becoming a favorite channel of former President Donald Trump.
The decision to cut ties comes after President Joe Biden called on media outlets to “make a special appeal to social media companies and media outlets — please deal with the misinformation and disinformation that’s on your shows. It has to stop.”
In a recent blog post, John Bergmayer, the legal director at the advocacy group Public Knowledge, condemned OAN’s support of the theory that votes were tampered with during the 2020 election.
“OAN’s support for the ‘Big Lie’ that the 2020 election was stolen and the fact that it’s consistently giving airtime to conspiracy theories and misinformation on COVID-19, moves it from a participant in the marketplace of ideas to a peddler of toxic lies,” he wrote.
Pay-TV providers are also cutting down their channel catalogs as potential customers flock to streaming platforms.
- Content: +1Share:
- Content: +4