Banished from all major U.S. pay TV services, OAN is going OTA.

The controversial far-right cable channel is now distributing itself as a broadcast subchannel with the aim of being in 100 broadcast TV markets by the end of the year, according to Bloomberg. 

One America News Network’s subchannel is currently in about 30 markets, including Pittsburgh; Las Vegas; Wichita, Kansas; Jacksonville, Florida; and Birmingham, Alabama.

“Viewers absolutely love it,” Vernon Van Winkle told Bloomberg. Van Winkle, who believes a foundational component of OAN dogma — that the 2020 presidential election was rigged — privately owns Las Vegas station KVPM-LD, whose signal reaches about 875,000 TV homes. 

“If my signal goes down for a second my phone lines are blowing up with people asking ‘What’s going on?’ ” Van Winkle added. 

Meanwhile, Pittsburgh production company Videohouse Inc. also licenses OAN for a subchannel that reaches 1.6 million households, about 160,000 of which have over-the-air antennas. 

“I’m trying get as much programming as I can so the people of Pittsburgh don’t have to suffer once they leave cable,” Videohouse president Ron Bruno also told Bloomberg. 

Herring Networks, which owns OAN, lost distribution for its channels on DirecTV and Verizon earlier this year. And it's still facing serious lawsuit threats from voting-machine manufacturers tied to OAN's vociferous reporting of former President Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” — the ruinous assertion, not supported by any evidence but fatally corrosive to any democracy, that the 2020 election was rigged. 

With no meaningful pay TV distribution left, OAN has tried to cobble back a national presence with FAST channel options. That gambit undoubtedly has limited potential for an ultra-conservative media company targeting primarily older viewers. 

As for the subchannel route, it's hard to estimate how many viewers OAN is reaching, much less advertising to. Bloomberg cited Nielsen data showing the share of U.S. TV homes with a broadcast TV antenna has risen to 15% from 10% in 2010. 

The emergence of live channel guides on connected TV platforms like Roku will undoubtedly drive that number higher in the near term. 

Angelo Carusone, president of nonprofit watchdog group Media Matters for America, told Bloomberg that OAN's distribution strategy is to “find as many distribution partners we can.”

Revenue is most likely still limited, Carusone said, but the media company is keeping the lights on with its audience until it can find a new tentpole pay TV partner. ▪️

Fledgling virtual MVPD Vidgo, the only remaining  nationally distributed pay TV service still carrying the highly controversial One America News Network (OANN), is doubling down on right-wing content, giving former Fox News firebrand Bill O'Reilly  his own weekly show. 

O'Reilly, who was forced to end his high-profile 16-year tenure as a lynchpin commentator for Fox News back in April 2017 amid sexual harassment claims from six women, actually kicked off his new weekly Vidgo show, the hamfistedly titled Shock and Awe, last Friday, with an installment featuring former NFL stars Joe Namath and Rob Gronkowski discussing the physical toll caused by the game of football on its players. 

It's an interesting first topic, given that Vidgo pays the just re-retired Gronkowski to ply his well-worn knucklehead TV commercial persona to shill for the vMVPD in ads. Vidgo also markets itself as a key destination for college football live game coverage, with carriage of ESPN and Fox Sports 1&2, as well as regional sports channels The Longhorn Network and Pac-12 Network. 

As for this Friday's upcoming Shock and Awe installment, O'Reilly will look at "how the Biden Presidency stacks up against others." (Despite a landmark series of key legislative victories, you can probably guess where that's headed.) 

Vidgo, which had "over 25,000 subscribers" according to one published report last year, has committed to 40 installments of Shock and Awe, with Vidgo founder Shane Cannon touting on social media Tuesday, "the best package for Middle America just got better." 

"Vidgo is the future of information and entertainment. It will provide reasonable cost streaming with smart, unique content. Shock and Awe will deliver timely interviews and analysis with the most intelligent people in the world," O’Reilly said in a statement.

“Bill is an American icon. We couldn’t be more excited to have Vidgo serve as the exclusive home for Shock and Awe,” added Vidgo CEO Derek Mattsson. “We believe this is exactly the kind of programming that will resonate with our base and substantially grow our subscribers.”   

Notably, after building his fading media brand via the powerful platform of the notably far right Fox News, O'Reilly has criticized his former network for downplaying the significance of the January 6 insurrection. He's also dismissed former President Donald Trump's assertion that the 2020 election was "rigged." 

These beliefs are in direct conflict OANN, which was -- perhaps as a consequence -- recently dropped by DirecTV and Verizon. 

For its part, however, Vidgo continues to carry OANN, alongside Fox News and Newsmax. 

The other shoe appears ready to drop for One American News Network (OAN), which lost its biggest pay TV carriage provider, DirecTV, back in April.

The controversial far right cable network, known for its reporting of loony-tunes conspiracy theories and its avid support for former president Donald Trump's "Big Lie" about bogus 2020 election fraud, has a deal with its last major MVPD partner, Verizon Fios, that expires on July 30.

"Our negotiation with OAN has been a typical, business-as-usual carriage negotiation like those that routinely happen between content distributors and content providers. These negotiations were focused on economics, as they always are, but OAN failed to agree to fair terms," Verizon said in a statement emailed to Next TV Thursday.

"Since we were unable to reach an agreement, effective July 31, 2022, we will no longer have the rights to provide our customers with this programming, and it will be removed from the Fios TV lineup," Verizon added. "Our company has long advocated for providing customers with the ability to choose what content they want to watch, and our Fios TV platform offers a wide and diverse choice of programming options, including a la carte options, that strive to meet our millions of customers' various content needs and preferences."

Also read: Trump Calls for Boycotts of AT&T and Comcast, Says They're 'Radical Left Lunatics Who Are Destroying Our Nation'

Beyond Verizon Fios TV, which finished the first quarter with around 3.56 million remaining subscribers, One America News has carriage via Alaskan cable operator GCI and through small virtual MVPD Vidgo. These remaining outlets likely provide less than 200,000 subscribers combined, however. 

OAN does deliver its programming through free live streaming service KlowdTV, and OAN is now selling itself via a live-streaming 24/7 direct-to-consumer app for $4.99 a month, $53.85 a year. Also, OAN has begun distributing itself as a digital sub-channel. 

Last week, OAN announced that it's now available as a sub on WOSC-CD channel 61.8 in the Pittsburgh DMA.

"We have been incredibly encouraged by the momentum that our OAN Plus channel is building in broadcast and we continue to hear that the significance and relevance of the OAN brand is valuable" said Alex Kopacz, executive VP of content distribution and strategy at OAN. "We recognize the growth of broadcast OTA viewership and adding a new top-25 DMA like Pittsburgh will further accelerate our ongoing broadcast strategy."

Can OAN sell enough advertising as a sub channel, and enough $4.99 DTC subscriptions, to make up for the loss of tens of millions of pay TV homes? 

A number of OAN talents have recently bolted the programmer for rival far-right channel Newsmax. And more than a whiff of desperation seems to be permeating Herring's San Diego headquarters. 

This was in full effect in June, when Robert Herring tweeted a rumor about Elon Musk swooping in and buying his channel -- a rumor Musk immediately shot down. 

After DirecTV's majority owner, AT&T, announced in January that it wouldn't renew its deal with OAN, One America News personality Dan Ball urged viewers to dig up dirt on AT&T Chairman Bill Kennard, "whatever it is." 

Trump, meanwhile, called AT&T -- a publicly traded company based in what is a decidedly red state, which contributed to his election campaign and staunchly supported his 2017 corporate tax break -- "left-wing lunatics who are destroying our nation."

AT&T's juxtaposition to OAN, however, is far different than Verizon's, with AT&T having a ground-floor role in launching the channel. ■

Suddenly a hero to the far right, will Elon Musk swoop in and save One America News Network from pay TV carriage damnation?

The chances of the late John Kennedy Jr. suddenly resurfacing at a Dallas car wash are probably better.

On Thursday, Robert Herring, who owns the now very poorly distributed OANN, posted on the social media platform that Musk is currently trying to buy, Twitter, that "he'd 'just received a call from somebody very close to @elonmusk'" about the so-called richest man on earth possibly buying OANN.

Musk quickly shot that down "Only Twitter," Musk tweeted.

OANN lost its largest distributor in early April, when DirecTV demurred on extending the channel's carriage on its satellite TV and streaming pay TV platforms. In fact, in terms of pay TV distribution, OANN remains on Verizon Fios, which has just under 3.7 million subscribers, along with the TV/video services of a handful of small, regional cable operators. 

OANN also has streaming distribution of OAN Plus via platforms like Pluto TV, but it will probably need a benefactor to keep the lights on much longer. 

Not that Herring looks desperate or anything. 

As for the self-made son of a South African emerald miner, Musk said earlier this week that he won't fulfill his commitment to pay over $33 billion in cash for Twitter until the social media company gives up all its data on bot and spam accounts. Twitter called Musk's bluff and is in the process of assembling and delivering that data. ■

DirecTV has told its subscribers that it's sticking with its plan to drop One America News Network (OAN) at end-of-day Monday (April 4), despite a flurry of threats, legal and otherwise, emanating from the far-right cable channel's on-air personalities and constituents.

With OAN under a barrage of lawsuits and controversy for its enthusiastic support of former President Donald Trump‘s bogus claim that the 2020 election was stolen, DirecTV announced in January that it would drop the channel from its program guides, effective in April when its current carriage deal expired. 

OAN, which is owned by San Diego-based Herring Networks and derives most of its distribution via DirecTV, didn't take the news well. 

Dan Ball, one of OAN's most prominent on-air personalities, urged viewers to dig up dirt on Bill Kennard, the former FCC chairman who now chairs the board of AT&T ... which recently spun DirecTV off but is still the majority owner of the pay TV company. 

From the Archives (2016): Court Won't Dismiss Herring Suit Against AT&T 

Trump himself called for a boycott of AT&T in February, "decrying radical left lunatics who are destroying our nation." 

In March, Herring Networks sued AT&T for breach of contract, accusing AT&T and DirecTV of "bowing to political pressure" by removing not only One America News, but also Herrings affluent lifestyle channel AWE ("A Wealth of Entertainment). 

That notion of political bias was hammered home in a letter sent in March by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, co-signed by his fellow red state AGs in Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana and South Carolina, accusing AT&T and DirecTV of bowing to “powerful left-wing voices.” 

These claims come under quite a bit of scrutiny when you consider that DirecTV is now adding to its lineup Fox Nation, home to a recent Tucker Carlson segment whereby he suggested that the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection was merely an event staged by the Deep State to entrap conservatives. The Fox News Media streaming outlet is a  $5.99 premium add-on channel on DirecTV. 

As for OAN, it still has distribution via Verizon Fios, as well as a handful of smaller cable operators. KlowdTV, a virtual pay TV operator, is bundling OAN, Newsmax and InfoWars for $2.50 a month. And OAN has its own FAST play with the linear streaming OAN Plus. Still, all told, distribution of OAN is less than 5 million at this point. ■ 

Former president Donald Trump, who has been using his ongoing national circuit of campaign-style rallies to urge the boycott of DirecTV and parent company AT&T for removing conservative channel One America News (OAN), added his re-ignited wrath for Comcast to the flame this past weekend. 

Speaking Saturday at the fairgrounds in the East Texas flatland town of Conroe, Trump described both publicly traded telecommunications giants as "left-wing lunatics who are destroying our nation." (The UK's Daily Mail  reported on the event.)

Notably, both companies contributed to Trump's failed 2020 re-election bid, according to Open Secrets. AT&T was also an aggressive supporter of Trump's 2017 corporate tax rollback, one of the former president's few big legislative wins. Comcast, meanwhile, backed the Trump-assembled FCC leadership's bid to roll back net neutrality rules established under the Barack Obama administration. 

Trump, however, told his followers that the companies are full of "woke" executives who should be boycotted. 

AT&T, which now owns 70% of DirecTV after spinning the pay TV company off in a joint venture with private equity firm TPG Capital, has come under fire in recent weeks, after it declared its intention not to renew its carriage agreement with OAN after it expires in April. DirecTV described the move as simply a business decision. 

Mirroring comments he made earlier about OAN at a rally in Arizona two weeks ago, Trump said DirecTV's decision to remove the niche channel was "purely political." 

‘People love it. People love it. And it's got a big audience,’ Trump said. 

For its part, Nielsen has rated OAN's average viewership at far less than 500,000 watchers, and DirecTV still carries conservative informational counterparts Fox News and Newsmax. 

A week earlier, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) tweeted a declaration that he was cancelling DirecTV, a pay TV service that he claims "hates" conservatives. TPG donated $274,000 to the Republican National Committee for the 2020 election cycle, Open Secrets said.

At his Arizona rally on Jan. 16, an event covered by Mediaite, Trump alluded to conversations with OAN founders Charles and Robert Herring, who he said had urged him not to use the word "boycott" in regard to AT&T.

“They said please don’t mention the word boycott, so i won’t mention it,” Trump said. “I’m not going to use the word boycott. I will not say boycott AT&T! Because I promised Robert I will not do it! So I will not say boycott them!”

By the time he got to Texas, Trump expanded the verb to also apply to what he called "Concast," claiming that the Philadelphia cable conglomerate, owner of NBCUniversal and NBC News, is "no good." (Citing what he calls "unfair" treatment from NBC News and its MSNBC network, Trump has targeted Comcast with pointed comments for several years.)

"Boycott Comcast and Xfinity while you’re at it," he said. ■

One America News Network, or OAN, suffered a heavy blow with DirecTV’s recent decision to drop the right-wing news outlet from its offerings in what the satcaster called a purely business decision. 

In response, anchor Dan Ball urged viewers to dig up “dirt” on AT&T’s board Chairman William Kennard, a former Clinton Administration FCC chair and an ambassador under Obama. Ball wanted proof that Kennard, who is Black, was “saying racial slurs against white people” or committing other transgressions like cheating on taxes or his spouse.

Also read: OAN Will Have Less Than 5 Million Remaining Pay TV Subscribers Following DirecTV Ouster

“Whatever it may be. Find it for me. Bring it, and we will air it,” Ball said, in an initiative that seems unlikely to encourage DirecTV to reconsider its plans. 

Separately, OAN CEO Robert Herring called for viewers to pressure executives at competing pay-TV outlets including Dish Network and Charter Communications to pick up the service. That too seems unlikely to bear significant fruit. After all, if OAN had enough viewers to force a pickup on other major pay-TV providers, DirecTV never would have dropped it. 

On the other hand, you can’t blame Ball and Herring for trying. 

Ad income and carriage fees from DirecTV comprise a substantial chunk of the network’s revenues. Back in 2020, a company attorney said in court proceedings that without DirecTV’s largesse, the network might have to close down. 

But DirecTV has its own problems. The company’s subscriber base has been in free fall for years, and AT&T’s stewardship after a 2015 acquisition did nothing to help. The subscriber decline only accelerated as the streaming wars heated up, and more customers turned to streaming and broadband for their entertainment needs. 

Last August, the wireless carrier finished spinning out DirecTV into a separate company, 30% owned by private equity firm TPG Capital. It’s worth noting the spinoff valued the standalone DirecTV at less than a third of AT&T’s original purchase price of $48.5 billion. 

And as is the case with DirecTV’s traditional terrestrial competitors, it needs to a.) make money as a stand-alone company, b.) stop hemorrhaging customers, and c.) cut costs. Thus, the need to trim low-viewership channels such as OAN. 

So, Herring will go hunting for slots on pay-TV set-top boxes, at the exact moment those companies are putting their bundles on a starvation diet, and their lesser offerings on an iceberg headed out to sea. 

What OAN didn’t do, in a slightly puzzling throwback to pay-TV’s halcyon days a decade ago, was suggest that followers hop on its streaming app instead. In this regard, again, OAN is representative of the challenges facing many lesser networks still living off their cable honey pot. 

Founded in 2013, the San Diego-based OAN is one of the oldest of what’s become a veritable flock of online and cable news outlets positioning themselves as more conservative than kingpin Fox News, especially in the post-Trump era.  

The competitors include conservative media and social-media offerings such as Newsmax, Blaze Network, America’s Voice, Epoch Times, Washington Examiner, The Daily Wire, Red State, the Drudge Report, Gettr, and Gab. 

Highly profitable long-time ratings winner Fox News is permanently etched onto the cable bundle, as long as there is a cable bundle. And it has its own lifestyle and news streaming service, Fox Nation, though the company has declined to specify viewership, estimated by one analyst at around 1 million subscribers. 

This might be a good time to point out that the already substantial conservative news scrum also was supposed to include a social-media service from Digital World Acquisition Corp. 

The 13-month-old “blank-check" company merged last fall with Donald Trump’s newly formed media and technology unit, promising to roll out a social-media service in beta by December, with a full-fledged offering soon after. Soon to come was a separate streaming news service and other possible media units. 

Also read: Trump’s $825 Million, SPAC-Fueled Streaming and Social App? It's 'Caveat Emptor' All the Way (Analysis)

DWAC’s most tangible achievement so far has been this month’s resignation by U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes, formerly the founder of a radar-detector company, to become its CEO. 

Since then, it’s been a bit bumpy. Like many other SPACs caught up in the market turmoil of the past two weeks, DWAC has seen its formerly high-flying stock plummet, from a peak of $175 to close Wednesday’s market at $68.75, off 61%. 

Still, if I’m betting on which conservative news operation gets a spot on the shrinking dial at DirecTV, Dish or Charter Spectrum, I’d put my money on the Trump horse, should it ever leave the gate. 

All of which suggests that OAN — which already distributes some of its content on streaming places like Roku and conservative media aggregation platform KlowdTV — needs to make the transition to a streaming alternative sooner than later. That will mean, as for other endangered cable-first networks, a painful transition. Given OAN’s ideological tilt, the term “right-sizing” has a whole new heft. 

The good news is that connected TV apps are all the rage, and attracting advertisers at a quickening pace. You don’t have to worry much about finding dirt about the chairman of your erstwhile distribution partner. And best of all, creating opinions about the news isn’t a particularly expensive business to run. Just look at me. 

While the focus has been on its conservative programming rival One America News and its recent carriage struggles, Newsmax has also quietly lost distribution on a number of pay TV systems in recent weeks. 

Since Dec. 31, Newsmax has been pulled off the pay TV grids of cable operators including Atlantic Broadband, Cincinnati Bell, South Carolina's Hargray Communications (now owned by Cable One) and Central Pennsylvania's Blue Ridge Communications. And these are just the cable systems that have dropped Newsmax that we know about. 

It's unclear as to whether the carriage disruptions are part of an expiration of a master carriage deal Newsmax originally signed back in 2015 with the National Cable TV Cooperative (NCTC), which counts most, if not all, of the aforementioned cable companies as members. NCTC negotiates carriage agreements for around 700 member companies. 

Reps for Newsmax and NCTC didn't immediately respond to our inquires. 

Also read: OAN Will Have Less Than 5 Million Remaining Pay TV Subscribers Following DirecTV Ouster

As OAN has with its upcoming ouster from DirecTV, New York-based Newsmax has attributed its recent blackout troubles to "censorship" of conservative voices. 

"Despite our high ratings with personalities like Greg Kelly, Eric Bolling, Sean Spicer, Lyndsay Keith, Dick Morris, Alan Dershowitz, and more — it is clear that Blue Ridge doesn’t like Newsmax’s point of view," Newsmax said in a boilerplate statement released Monday intended to decry its concurrent loss of carriage on Hargray systems. 

The cable operators, meanwhile, frame the issue in standard carriage war terms -- it's just business. 

"While we worked in good faith to negotiate a new agreement, Newsmax insisted on unreasonable terms and conditions that would have resulted in increased TV fees for all Atlantic Broadband customers even though Newsmax is available for free for other viewers," Atlantic Broadband said in a statement. "This is unfair to Atlantic Broadband customers, including those who enjoy the channel. Because we could not reach a new agreement, the channel is no longer offered on our lineup.”

As its conservative informational rivals Fox News and OAN have, Newsmax has been accused of backing former president Donald Trump's "Big Lie," and fomenting all the associated trouble that has come with that, including the January 6, 2021 Insurrection and attack on the U.S. democracy. 

Progressives and media watchdog groups have urged pay TV operators to drop channels including Newsmax that have supported a profoundly dangerous narrative not underpinned by facts. 

Whether Newsmax is facing a rash of garden-variety program licensing disputes or has a far more serious problem whereby pay TV companies are no longer interested in licensing its channel, regardless of the price, for purposes of political baggage is hard to publicly know. 

At this point, it's safe to say that Newsmax's pay TV distribution is in far better shape than that of OAN, which touts Verizon Fios as its only remaining significant distributor. 

For example, both U.S. satellite TV companies, DirecTV and Dish Network, still include Newsmax in their base tiers. 

Recently rebranded as "Breezeline, Atlantic Broadband operates in 18 states and just touted around 360,000 pay TV customers as of the end of the third quarter -- which is probably more than Cincinnati Bell, Hargray and Blue Ridge have combined. 

Yet, if the issue with these distributors is what Newsmax has publicly said it is -- these cable operators simply don't like the channel's "point of view" -- that number will soon grow. 

Stay tuned. 

It was well understood last week that One America News (OAN), one of the most controversial channels on the American pay TV programming grid, will face a distribution crisis in April, when the far right informational channel is pulled from DirecTV. 

More closely examining OAN's remaining carriage and associated economics reveals the true existential gravity of the channel's situation -- by our estimates, OAN will have less than 5 million remaining U.S. pay TV subscribers left once its current deal with its largest distributor, DirecTV, expires. 

On its website, OAN (also referred to as "OANN") lists remaining carriage on Verizon Fios, which had just over 3.7 million subscribers as of the end of September. OAN is still distributed on CenturyLink's Prism video system, which had less than 300,000 customers when the operator opted to stop growing the enterprise back in 2018.

OAN also has carriage on Alaska's General Communications Inc., which had just under 103,000 video customers when it was purchased by Liberty Interactive in 2017. 

Also read: DirecTV's OAN Decision Costs It a Customer: Rand Paul

In terms of more digitally oriented carriage, OAN is licensed by upstart virtual MVPD Vidgo, which touted 25,000 subscribers as of February of last year. 

Notably, San Diego-based Herring Networks, which operates OAN and A Wealth of Entertainment, has a digital iteration of OAN called "OAN Plus" situated on KlowdTV, a FAST platform for "conservative voices." Most of OAN's key on-air personalities, including Dan Ball, have shows carried by OAN Plus on KlowdTV, which is free to view on most major OTT platforms and the open internet. 

Of course, none of this matches the weight of DirecTV, which had around 15 million subscribers when AT&T last summer spun off the pay TV enterprise into a joint venture with private equity firm TPG. AT&T still owns 70% of that JV. 

Also read: OAN Host Dan Ball Declares War on AT&T and DirecTV

Discounting whatever it makes on KlowdTV, as well as a few far-flung distribution platforms, such as Base TV, which serves Ramstein Air Base in Germany, OAN's remaining U.S. pay TV carriage yields monthly affiliate revenue of only around $550,000 a month, according to licensing fee estimates provided to us by a pay TV distribution executive. 

Last week, DirecTV issued a terse statement, announcing its decision not to renew its distribution deal with Herring for both OAN and A World of Wealth.

The decision came following criticism of AT&T, which as Reuters detailed in October, played a foundational role in the launch of One America News. The channel, in turn, has come under intense scrutiny for its staunch support of former president Donald Trump's "Big Lie" -- the false narrative that Trump's loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election was determined by cheating. 

More broadly, media pundits view OAN as being on the vanguard of extreme right voices, one of the most vile and prolific fomenters of misinformation and division in American society. 

“DirecTV made a negligent mistake in 2021 when they renewed their contract with OAN even after OAN spent weeks attacking the election and stoking the embers that helped fuel the January 6 insurrection. They gave OAN a full year to undermine our democracy -- and our country suffered for it," Media Matters said. 

We asked reps for Verizon and Vidgo if their respective pay TV operations had any plans to cut ties with OAN, but neither immediately responded. 

If DirecTV's pullout didn't represent existential threat enough to Herring, the company, along with fellow far right informational networks Fox News and Newsmax, are also being sued by several voting machine companies for libel, tied to the networks' Big Lie coverage. 

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.

DirecTV, which was recently spun off by AT&T with the rest of the telecom giant's video assets but remains a majority owned by the company, has drawn flak for serving as OAN's biggest distributor and, as such, helping keep afloat a channel that has backed Donald Trump and his baseless claims of election fraud and rigged voting machines. 

Back in October, a Reuters report also revealed that AT&T had supported the fledgling news network, prompting critics to call for OAN's removal from DirecTV.

Dan Ball, host of OAN's Real America, slammed AT&T on his show January 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.

Ball said he would hammer home the anti-AT&T message from now until the channel's contract with DirecTV is up in April.

Ball put up a graphic with Kennard's picture and AT&T's customer support phone number, asking viewers to call every day or e-mail the company to "raise hell" and "blow the phone lines up." ■

DirecTV has informed Herring Networks that DirecTV satellite TV and DirecTV Stream virtual MVPD platforms will no longer carry the programmer's controversial One America News Network (OAN) after the current program licensing deal with the Herring expires in April.

Another Herring channel, A Wealth of Entertainment, will also not return to the DirecTV programming grid. 

"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," a DirecTV rep said in an email to Next TV Friday night, confirming an earlier Bloomberg report.

“DirecTV made the responsible decision to drop OAN. OAN is a cauldron of misinformation and extremism," said Media Matters in a statement. 

Also read: DirecTV Rep: There Are No Plans to Drop OAN Through the Current Carriage Deal

The announcement comes three months after AT&T, which still owns the majority of DirecTV after spinning the satellite TV carrier off in a joint venture with private equity firm TPG last summer, came under fire for not only serving as OAN's biggest distributor, but also having a big supporting role in the channel's launch. 

Testimony made two years ago amid an employment lawsuit, including a deposition made by OAN founder and CEO Robert Herring Sr., shows that AT&T might have contributed as much as 90% of OAN's revenue since the company was launched in 2013. 

One America News Network has been one of the most aggressive proponents of former President Donald Trump's "Big Lie," the completely unsubstantiated assertion that the 2020 presidential election was undermined by wide-scale cheating. 

“DirecTV made a negligent mistake in 2021 when they renewed their contract with OAN even after OAN spent weeks attacking the election and stoking the embers that helped fuel the January 6 insurrection. They gave OAN a full year to undermine our democracy - and our country suffered for it," Media Matters added. 

OAN now lacks carriage on the largest U.S. pay TV services, a cadre that also includes Comcast, Charter Communications and Dish Network. 

Verizon Fios remains OAN's largest pay TV distributor, along with a gaggle of smaller operators, including upstart vMVPD Vidgo. 

The loss of key distribution comes as OAN and its conservative infotainment rivals, Newsmax and Fox News, are each facing lawsuits from several different makers of voting machines, following bogus on-air assertions that these manufacturers "rigged" their equipment to skew the election results in favor of the winner, President Joe Biden. 

Democratic Federal Communications Commission nominee Gigi Sohn has gotten support from what would appear at first blush to be an unlikely ally, Charles Herring, president of conservative One America News Network.

Sohn was slammed by The Wall Street Journal in an editorial this week titled “A Media Censor for the FCC?” The question mark suggested the jury was still out, but the editorial appeared to be more of an exclamation point. It said her “strident partisanship” should disqualify her and that she “favors deploying the agency’s regulatory power to shackle broadband providers and silence conservative voices.”

As a top aide to FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, Sohn was a big advocate for the imposition of net neutrality rules and was no fan of Sinclair Broadcast Group for its perceived conservative bias (nor were many other Democrats).

In a statement on the OAN website, Herring painted a quite different portrait while conceding their politics were hardly on the same page.

“I’m fully aware of Gigi's personal views,” said Herring, which have raised red flags among Republican senators preparing to grill her at a confirmation hearing and vote on her nomination. ”[Y]et I‘m even more knowledgeable on her strong belief and advocacy for diversity in the programming lineup, especially in news, regardless of conflicts with her personal views.”

Herring for years has been fighting to get distributor shelf space for his networks, including asking the FCC for help.

Rather than being someone who wants to silence voices, Herring says she has advocated for “reasonable policies to support numerous points of view and to open up the markets to independent voices in all aspects of the media. She believes in the First Amendment and the advantages of a strong and open media for the benefit of democracy.”

He called on other programmers to “step up” and support Sohn.

Newsmax and One America News Network were sued by yet another voting machine maker Wednesday, with Smartmatic joining Dominion in defamation claims against the far right media outlets tied to their reporting about unsubstantiated 2020 presidential election fraud allegations. 

"Despite claims to provide viewers with honest, unbiased reporting, these outlets victimized Smartmatic by spreading false information about the company following last year's election, all in their efforts to increase viewership and revenue," J. Erik Connolly, one of the attorneys representing Smartmatic, said in a statement.

Smartmatic had already sued Fox, which also rendered reports of alleged voting machine malfeasance through its Fox News and Fox Business platforms. 

For its part, Dominion has sued all three far right media companies, as well. 

Smartmatic filed its complaint against Newsmax Media in a Delaware superior court. Smartmatic claims that Newsmax "published dozens of reports indicating that Smartmatic participated in a criminal conspiracy to rig and steal the 2020 U.S. election and that its technology and software were used to switch votes from former President Trump to now President Biden."

Newsmax responded with this statement: "While Newsmax has yet to receive or review the Smartmatic filing, Newsmax reported accurately on allegations made by well-known public figures, including the President, his advisors and members of Congress, as well as reporting on Smartmatic’s claims in its defense. Smartmatic’s action against Newsmax today is a clear attempt to squelch the rights of a free press."

With AT&T coming under fire this week following revelations of its foundational role in the creation of controversial far-right media company One America News Network, a DirecTV rep told Next TV that the pay TV operator has no plans to drop the OAN channel before its current distribution deal ends. 

“We plan to honor our existing agreement through its current term. Like other channels, we evaluate OAN on an ongoing basis and will conduct a thorough review before any renewal,“ the rep said. 

DirecTV won't say when its current carriage deal with OAN is up. 

The DirecTV statement comes one day after OAN critics, including Angelo Carusone, president and CEO of media watchdog group Media Matters, called on AT&T to drop OAN from its pay TV platforms immediately. 

AT&T, which just spun DirecTV off, along with the rest of its linear pay TV assets, into a joint venture with private equity firm TPG, that the telecom 70% owns, has come under sharp criticism week following a Reuters report revealing its foundational backing of OAN. 

Testimony made two years ago amid an employment lawsuit, including a deposition made by OAN founder and CEO Robert Herring Sr., shows that AT&T might have contributed as much as 90% of OAN's revenue since the company was launched in 2013. 

According to Herring, before OAN launched, AT&T told him that the company wanted to have another conservative network, besides Fox News, on its programming guide.  

“They only had one, which was Fox News, and they had seven others on the other [leftwing] side. When they said that, I jumped to it and built one," he said. 

But OAN has come under intense criticism for backing former President Donald Trump‘s “Big Lie” — that the 2020 election was “rigged” and determined by fraud. The company's critics blame it for spreading associated misinformation that led to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the nation's capital. 

OAN has also come under heavy fire for spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and its associated vaccines, with critics accusing the media company of duping thousands of its consumers into fatal decision-making regarding the deadly virus. 

“For a corporation that fuels OAN, a network that continues to spread lies about the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 insurrection, AT&T’s values could not be any more performative and flat-out fake,” NAACP president Derrick Johnson said in a statement. “We are sickened by these revelations.”

On his Twitter feed Thursday, Media Matters chief Carusone detailed specifics of what his org believes are the terms of AT&T's carriage deal with OAN:

> AT&T's spun-off media platforms are “overpaying” OAN to the tune of 12 cents per subscriber per month, Carusone said. With around 15.4 million subscribers, as of the end of the second quarter, the erstwhile AT&T TV (now DirecTV Stream), U-verse and DirecTV are paying, combined, around $1.8 million a month to OAN, according to the math Carusone lays out. “OANN doesn't have a particular [sic] high demand score and certainly not one that would justify 12 cents,” he tweeted. A former programming executive for a major pay TV operator told us he believes AT&T is probably paying around 11 cents per subscriber for not just OAN, but also Herring Network's Inc.'s AWN channel. "This makes the effective cost of OWN $0.05 per channel," the exec said.

> According to Media Matters, AT&T has a provision in its carriage deal with One America News stipulating that any other pay TV operator has to pay the same carriage fees as AT&T. “ATT almost certainly put this provision in the contract in order to make it harder for them to get pick up elsewhere … so that the channel would be largely limited to ATT,” Carusone tweeted. The former pay TV programming executive confirmed this assertion. 

> AT&T's carriage agreement with OAN automatically renews each year, Carusone added. ”Earlier in the year, it seems ATT made the ACTIVE decision to allow the contract with OANN to renew … even after all the medical misinfo, attacks on election and Jan 6 insurrection,“ he added. The former programming exec we spoke to disputed this assertion: "I believed AT&T’s was a multi-year deal without the annual renewal mechanism," he said.

AT&T needs to “immediately sever ties” with One America News Network, according to Angelo Carusone, president and CEO of media watchdog Media Matters for America, after an exhaustive Reuters report detailing AT&T's inextricable and foundational role in building the controversial far-right media company. 

According to Reuters, which obtained deposition testimony from OAN executives, AT&T has contributed as much as 90% of OAN's revenue.  

Testifying in 2019 as part of a wrongful termination complaint filed by a former OAN producer, OAN founder and chief executive Robert Herring Sr. described a symbiotic relationship with AT&T, which he said helped will the media company into existence in 2013. 

“They told us they wanted a conservative network,” Herring testified. “They only had one, which was Fox News, and they had seven others on the other [left-wing] side. When they said that, I jumped to it and built one.”

According to other testimony provided by an OAN accountant during the same trial, 90% of OAN's revenue came from carriage agreements with AT&T‘s pay TV platforms, DirecTV and U-verse TV, Reuters reported. 

The accountant estimated that OAN received as much as $57 million from AT&T at that point, although an AT&T rep disputed that figure to Reuters. 

With Herring having testified that he was offered $250 million for OAN at one point, the accountant was asked how much the media company would be worth without those pay TV carriage agreements. 

”Zero,” he responded. 

Reuters‘ reporting of close ties to OAN comes as the media company is taking heat for backing former President Donald Trump‘s bogus accusations of fraud in the 2020 election, as well as OAN's sustained reporting of misinformation tied to COVID-19 and the vaccines made to stop it. 

For example, if you are one of the 8 million people who, on average, visit OAN's webpage each month, and you happened to do that on Wednesday, you saw a lead item that includes video from the “Health and Freedom Conference,” with speakers including disgraced former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, a noted propagator of COVID-19-associated conspiracies, providing additional misinformation about vaccines. 

Meanwhile, OAN‘s San Diego-based parent, Herring Networks, is being sued by Dominion Voting for $1.6 billion for allegedly slandering the company’s voting technology amid its bogus election fraud reports. 

As described by Reuters, AT&T’s symbiotic relationship with Herring Networks, for which OAN is a subsidiary, dates back to the aughts, when Herring struggled to find carriage for opulent-lifestyle-themed cable network WealthTV, even complaining to the FCC about allegedly unfair business practices by pay TV operators. 

AT&T ultimately agreed to carry WealthTV on its U-verse platform, and later put OAN on the pay TV service, as well. In 2014, when AT&T agreed to pay $49 billion to acquire the much larger DirecTV, Herring helped salve issues with regulators, hiring his own D.C. lobbyist, meeting with FCC officials and signing proponent petitions ghostwritten by AT&T.

“Herring’s support of AT&T ran deep,” the Herrings’ lawyers wrote in court papers tied to the employment case. “Herring invited AT&T to utilize OAN’s news programs to cast a positive light on the acquisition and advocated for other issues affecting AT&T’s business.”

Speaking to Reuters, AT&T spokesperson Jim Greer responded, “We have always sought to provide a wide variety of content and programming that would be of interest to customers, and do not dictate or control programming on channels we carry. Any suggestion otherwise is wrong.”

The recently spun off AT&T pay TV platforms, which are now 70% owned by the telecom in a joint venture with private equity firm TPG, represent OAN’s biggest carriage relationships. 

OAN is also carried by Verizon Fios and CenturyLink Prism, as well as cable operator GCI and virtual pay TV service Vidgo. 

A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court's dismissal of a defamation suit filed by One America News Network (OAN) against MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, saying no reasonable person could have taken Maddow's statement for objective fact.

That means OAN is on the hook for a reported $150,000-plus sin attorneys fees and court costs.

Maddow's June 2019 statement on The Rachel Maddow Show--she was reporting/commenting on a Daily Beast story about Kristian Rouz, an OAN employee who also freelanced for Russian government-funded Sputnik TV--was that OAN “really literally is paid Russian propaganda.”

OAN owner Herring Network Inc. had argued that the statement was false, that people could reasonably conclude it was not hyperbole even if that were not the intent, and that such a statement was harmful to an "American news agency" like OAN.

Also Read: Herring Files Brief in Defamation Suit

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit dismissed Herring's complaint "with prejudice," meaning it can't refile.

The court said that Herring had relied on evidence outside its complaint to argue that California's Anti-SLAPP statute did not prevent its defamation suit.

Anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuits against public participation) laws are meant to prevent people from using lawsuits or threats of lawsuits to suppress free speech.

In dismissing the suit, the courts said Maddow's July 2019 statement was "well within the bounds of protected speech under the First Amendment."

The court said that, in context, the statement was "an obvious exaggeration, cushioned within an undisputed news story. The statement could not reasonably be understood to imply an assertion of objective fact, and therefore, did not amount to defamation."

The court also held that the lower court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing the suit without allowing Herring to amend it, adding that Herring didn't ask to amend it, and at any rate, sounding a Star Trek-like note, "amendment would have been futile."

OAN Plus, the over-the-top (OTT) news channel from Herring Networks, is launching on a digital subchannel of OTA (over-the-air) distributor independent KPVM-TV Las Vegas.

OAN Plus is a fee ad-supported spin-off of the national cable news network and will now add 2.7 million over-the-air homes via the TV station.

Also Read: OAN Signs Long-Term Deal with Buckeye

“OAN is one of the strongest center-to-right news brands in the nation," said KPVM-TV owner Vernon Van Winkle. 

OAN President Charles Herring said he was looking to get more OTA coverage for his OTT channel. 

"OTT and OTA delivery, both free to the consumer without the need for subscriptions or logins, will extend the life of linear channels," he said. "Live content such as news and sports will have the most relevant longevity on linear platforms...More roll-outs of OAN Plus as an OTA broadcast sub-channel are on the horizon.”

The majority of Republicans and Republican leaners (62%) get political news from Fox*, according to a new Pew Research poll. That was compared to 21% who said they got political news from Newsmax TV and One America News (OAN) Network (14%).

The online survey was conducted March 8-14 among 12,045 adults, all members of Pew's American Trends Panel. The margin of error was plus or minus 1.5 percentage points.

Also Read: House Dems Pressure Distributors to Justify Carrying Fox News, Others

And while then President Trump touted OAN and Newsmax on Twitter as alternatives to Fox News when he took issue with or umbrage at Fox's coverage of him or his administration, viewers appear to have an appetite or both.

Over three quarters (77%) of adults who get political news from Newsmax said they also got news from Fox. For Newsmax, that figure was 69%.

Democrats were Fox viewers as well. The survey found that about three in 10 Democrats and "leaners" got some political news from Fox, but a statistically insignificant number--Pew said "virtually none"--got political news from Newsmax or OAN.

Among all viewers, 43% of respondents said they got political news from Fox News, about four times the number who said they got it from Newsmax (10%) and six times OAN (7%).

And Fox draws its audience from across the spectrum, with 47% of Black respondents saying they get political news from the network, followed by 47% whie, 41% Hispanic and 29% Asian.

Also Read: House GOP Leaders Demand FCC Denounce Attacks on Fox News, Others

Newsmax and OAN over-index for conservatives. While 10% of moderate and liberal Republicans said they tuned in to Newsmax, 27% of conservatives said they did so. Only 7% of moderate and liberal Republicans watched OAN, compared to 19% of conservative Republicans who said the did.

* For this and the other figures, respondents were asked if they got news from the relevant outlet in the preceding week.

One America News Network (OAN) and lifestyle channel A Wealth of Entertainment (AWE) have signed long-term carriage agreements with Buckeye Broadband and MaxxSouth Broadband.

“We appreciate our partnership with Buckeye and MaxxSouth and are thrilled that Buckeye and MaxxSouth Broadband customers will have continued access to OAN and AWE," said Ann Schick, executive VP for content distribution at parent company, Herring Networks.  

Herring Networks said that for the week of Aug. 24, OAN was the fourth-ranked news network. It has gotten a boost from President Donald Trump, who has tweeted that it could be his new favorite network. He also routinely calls on OAN during press conferences.

OAN launched July 4, 2013. AWE was formerly WealthTV.

Christina Bobb has been tapped to cover breaking news on the Trump Administration for One America News Network (OAN), the conservative cable news channel whose profile Trump continues to raise, most recently with Tuesday's (June 9) tweet about a Buffalo protester. 

Related: Trump Cites OAN in Tweet about Buffalo Protester 

Bobb is the former executive secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, responsible for answering correspondence and preparing written communications--briefing books, hearing testimony, and more--for the secretary and deputy secretary of the department. 

Her resume also includes judge advocate in the U.S. Marine Corps., where she defended marines and sailors in courts martial and administrative separation hearings, and private legal practice. 

Most recently, Bobb clerked at the Office of Legal Counsel for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Radio Television Digital News Association president Dan Shelley has issued an "open letter" calling out the President and One America News Network (OAN) reporter Chanel Rion for separate incidents last week during the White House's daily coronavirus briefings. He also used the opportunity to give a shout out to his members, the journalists on the front lines of covering the crisis. 

"What was an opportunity for responsible journalists to press the President on the federal government’s response and new developments regarding important antiviral therapies, turned into an opportunity for OAN’s Chanel Rion and the President to take cheap shots at responsible media outlets, repeat offensive racial stereotypes and proselytize about the administration," said Shelley. 

In the briefing, Rion, in asking a question about whether the term "Chinese virus" was racist, said that "left wing media, even in this room, have teamed up with Chinese Communist party narratives and they are claiming you're racist...Is it alarming that major media players are siding with foreign state propaganda, Islamic radicals, and Latin cartels..." 

The President responded that he was amazed by the negative coverage because "I know the truth." He called the coverage "totally fake." He has praised OAN for positive coverage of him and his administration, suggesting it may be his new go-to network over Fox News Channel. 

"Shame on you Chanel Rion," wrote Shelley. "You are not the kind of messenger the public needs in the middle of this crisis." 

Kelley's other call-out was over the President's treatment of NBC reporter Peter Alexander at the briefing the following day. Citing the infection and death statistics, and framing that in the context of whether the President was putting rosy a cast on the crisis, Alexander asked what the President would say to calm an anxious nation--Alexander later said he was essentially lobbing a softball question in search of some actual reassurance. 

The President responded: "I say that you are a terrible reporter, that's what I say."  

He called it a "nasty" question and a "bad signal" to put out to the American people. He said the American people "are looking for answers and they're looking for hope."

"You're doing sensationalism, and the same with NBC and Con-cast, for whom you work--I don't call it Comcast, I call it Con-cast," the President added for clarification. "Let me just tell you something. That's really bad reporting and you ought to get back to reporting instead of sensationalism."  

"Mr. President, news conferences meant to communicate important updates are not substitutes for rallies in an election year," Kelly wrote in a virtual finger wag. 

"As the leader of the country's largest association of broadcast and digital journalists and as a long-time journalist myself, I want Americans to know Rion’s bad behavior is not an accurate reflection of the work hundreds of local journalists are doing right now to serve and protect them. And Alexander’s question was intended to give Mr. Trump a chance to calm a nation in desperate need of some degree of solace," he said.  

The letter is reprinted in full below: 

By: Dan Shelley

RTDNA Executive Director

Last week during a White House briefing on the coronavirus epidemic, President Trump engaged in a distracting exchange with a reporter from the far-right news outlet One America News Network (OAN). 

What was an opportunity for responsible journalists to press the President on the federal government’s response and new developments regarding important antiviral therapies, turned into an opportunity for OAN’s Chanel Rion and the President to take cheap shots at responsible media outlets, repeat offensive racial stereotypes and proselytize about the administration. 

Shame on you Chanel Rion. You are not the kind of messenger the public needs in the middle of this crisis. 

Just a day after this exchange, President Trump verbally tore into NBC News White House Correspondent Peter Alexander after Alexander responsibly asked the country’s leader “What do you say to Americans who are watching you right now who are scared?” 

Apparently without considering the impact of his words as the leader of the country, the President responded by calling out Alexander as a terrible reporter, calling out NBC and “Concast” as sensational and declaring that asking a question like that is a bad for the American people.“ 

Mr. President, news conferences meant to communicate important updates are not substitutes for rallies in an election year. 

Right now, Americans desperately need clear and factual information to make life and death decisions. The system fails us when people like Rion and the President chose to prioritize a political agenda. 

As the leader of the country's largest association of broadcast and digital journalists and as a long-time journalist myself, I want Americans to know Rion’s bad behavior is not an accurate reflection of the work hundreds of local journalists are doing right now to serve and protect them. And Alexander’s question was intended to give Mr. Trump a chance to calm a nation in desperate need of some degree of solace.  

Responsible journalists across the country are working around the clock with one purpose in mind – facilitating public health and safety. They are seeking reliable sources to provide accurate health information. They are pressing state and local governments on their response to the coronavirus. They are passing along crucial public alerts and official communications in order to facilitate preparedness and combat panic. 

We have seen countless examples of journalists on the front lines of this crisis pulling together to facilitate public information even when staffing and resources are disrupted by exposure to this virus. 

In New York, CBS News made the responsible choice to close their entire broadcast center after several employees tested positive for COVID-19. As a result, local affiliate WCBS was displaced from its studio and operations center. Instead of giving up, the WCBS team has been anchoring the news from the sidewalk and partnering with KCBS in Los Angeles who is providing additional staff and technical direction. 

With so much mis- and disinformation in the public domain, KXLY in Spokane is taking extra measures to explain the decisions they are making related to coronavirus coverage and providing the public examples of the guidance they follow to ensure accurate information and vet reputable sources. 

CBS’s Steve Hartman is joining many other reporters to expand their efforts supporting communities by providing lessons for students. Countless other news organizations, network and local, are doing everything they can to help communities and the nation get the facts – facts – necessary to help fight this war on COVID-19. 

There are countless examples of news organizations collaborating to share stories, tips and knowledge about this new virus because supporting one another rather than competing to break a story is the right decision for the public in a life and death situation. 

Right now journalists on the front lines are performing and essential job. I have the utmost confidence they will continue to seek and report the truth as this crisis continues because they are the public too. They have families, co-workers and communities they care deeply about. And they are weighing the decisions they make in reporting carefully because the lives of those they care about depend on it too.  

Have faith, America. There are a multitude of responsible journalists out there working on your behalf. And we will not tolerate those who give in to distraction and partisanship.  

One American News Network confirms it has conducted an exclusive interview with fired former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Victor Shokin, as well as other Ukrainian officials. 

OAN is the conservative news network the President has praised as one of his new favorite news outlets--a short list given his general criticism of the media. 

The interviews, which also included with another former Ukrainian Prosecutor General, Yuriy Lutsenko, were conducted by Chanel Rion in Kiev. 

Shokin is the fired prosecutor who is one of the key players at the center of the Trump impeachment investigation. 

Trump's attorney, Rudy Giuliani, told Fox News that Shokin had told him he was warned off an investigation of former VP Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.  

The impeachment investigation centered on a Trump request for an assurance that the investigation be re-launched by the new Ukrainian president, allegedly tied to a White House meeting with the Ukrainian president and financial aid to the country. 

."Shokin makes it blatantly clear why he was fired and what he was working on that led to his termination!," OAN said in teasing the interview, which it will air in segments starting Thursday (Dec. 5), with an hour special featuring multiple interviews with Ukrainian officials Dec. 15, at 10 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. Pacific..  

House Speaker Nance Pelosi Thursday (Dec. 5) announced the House was proceeding with drafting articles of impeachment, meaning the Democratically House is likely to impeach, but the Republican-controlled Senate is highly unlikely to convict and remove the President from office. 

CNN was reporting that Giuliani was back in Ukraine this week talking to both Shokin and Lutsenko. Giuliani would only confirm to a conservative news outlet that he was representing his client, the President. A commentator on CNN said Thursday Giuliani appeared to be aiding OAN in their series on the prosecutors, dismissing Rion as a conspiracy theorist.

“Hearing from all sides with first hand knowledge should be demanded to seek the truth prior to voting on impeachment of the President," said Charles Herring, president of channel owner Herring Networks, responding to reports the network was trying to help Giuliani in the President's defense. "Clearly every witness will need to be judged for their credibility. All Americans should be concerned when key witnesses are ignored.”

One America News Network (OAN) parent Herring Networks is exploring buying the shuttering Al Jazeera America to get carriage on cable systems.

"Al Jazeera America and One America News Network (OAN) launched within a few months of each other," OAN parent Herring Networks told Multichannel News. "The latest ratings information from third party Rentrak shows that One America News Network has over four times the ratings [of Al Jazeera America]. "We are inquiring about the opportunity to acquire Al Jazeera America," he said.

The idea would be to replace it with OAN and thereby secure carriage (just as Al Jazeera tried to do when it bought Al Gore's Current TV). Al Jazeera has 60.8 million subs, according to Nielsen. "We would replace with One America News Network," he said, which has "a superior brand and ratings."

Herring also said he would be willing to "soften the blow" to Al Jazeera staffers by "absorbing some of their operations such as New York City and D.C. staff."

OAN has a D.C. bureau and Herring said they have already been looking at the same building and studios Al Jazeera uses in New York.

Al Jazeera has been leasing space in the Newseum, which has some of the best views in the city, particularly of Capitol Hill, but Herring signaled he would probably stay with his 101 Constitution Ave, which he points out is the closest commercial building to the Capitol and where he has negotiated rooftop access for live shots.

Herrring Networks and its fans have succeeded in flooding the FCC's Charter-TWC-Bright House merger docket with filings calling for its carriage as part of that deal.

Charter does not carry OAN, which Herring has pointedly pointed out to the FCC, saying it was an example of Charter’s unfriendliness to independent networks. But OAN is also not carried by Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox or most other major MVPDs — with the exception of Verizon Communications’s FiOS TV and AT&T’s U-verse TV.

Adonis Hoffman, Former chief of staff to FCC member Mignon Clyburn and chairman of Business in the Public Interest, who has been advising Herring on carriage and policy matters, said: "Herring Networks is an innovative, creative and entrepreneurial company, with high quality news programming through One America News. It has been looking to expand its offering to a broader audience, and this would be win-win for Herring as an independent, and any one or all of the big cable players. I also believe the Commission would find this a convenient and efficacious way to address some of the concerns raised by Herring and other independents concerning carriage."