DirecTV said a California judge has stricken the central claims in a breach of contract lawsuit filed by Herring Networks over DirecTV’s decision to drop the One America News cable network in January 2022.

The ruling was made Friday by Judge John Meyer of the Superior Court of California in San Diego County.

“While we’ve anticipated this positive outcome, we’re pleased the judge has ruled in our favor and dismissed OAN’s central claims regarding our decision to not renew a commercial agreement with the programmer,” DirecTV said in a statement.

Herring sued DirecTV when it said it planned to stop carrying the channel when its distribution agreement expired. DirecTV also dropped another Herring channel, AWE.

DirecTV represented the bulk of the distribution of OAN, a conservative oriented channel that was sued by voting machine companies Dominion and Smartmatic for stories it aired regarding fraud in the 2020 election.

DirecTV’s former parent company AT&T helped support OAN with fees that represented as much as 90% of the networks revenue, according to a report from Reuters.

One America News was also dropped by Verizon in July 2022, leaving it with almost no pay-TV distribution.

OAN has remained on the air by getting distribution from broadcast television stations in about 30 markets. ■

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. ▪️

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." ■

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. 

ABC has released the trailer for the eighth installment of its One America streamed news series.

That comes just in time to kick off Hispanic Heritage Month (which is actually Hispanic Heritage 30 days, starting Sept. 15 and ending Oct. 15).

Our America: Todos Unidos, a weeklong special, streams Sept. 15 on the web sites of ABC's eight owned TV stations and will also be available on ABC's almost three dozen connected TV apps on Fire TV, Android TV, Apple TV, Roku, and Hulu.

"From actors and activists to business owners who are keeping traditions alive, the hourlong news special shines a light on diverse voices from the Hispanic community honoring their heritage, celebrating their culture and expressing their identity," ABC said.

The series was helmed by the ABC-owned stations' Race and Culture Content EPs Mariel Myers, Porsha Grant and Nzinga Blake.

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.

RELATED:Finding ‘Truth’ in ‘The Big Interview’ > A Q&A With Dan Rather

When Al Jazeera America officially closes its doors April 12, it will leave a void among emerging cable news network voices that will be difficult to fill, industry observers said.

The three-year-old network, which this past February announced it would close down after unsuccessfully attempting to compete with cable’s upper echelon of news networks in Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC, will most likely not be replaced on most cable and satellite lineups with other emerging networks such as TheBlaze, Fusion, Newsmax TV or One America News Network, even as the 2016 political campaign heats up and drives news-network ratings.

ELECTION-YEAR RELEVANCE

Those emerging cable-news networks say the loss of Al Jazeera America does not signal a diminishing value for alternative voices beyond the big three cable news networks. Rather, it’s a realization that in a crowded, evolving pay TV marketplace, television news, like politics, is a di_ cult arena in which to rack up wins.

“There’s no doubt there’s an opportunity, and the live component of news in general preserves the linear platforms and makes them relevant,” said Charles Herring, president of Herring Networks, which owns conservative-leaning One America News. “MVPDs are always looking for live content, whether it’s news or sports, and a lot of the viewers tune to the linear offering to watch breaking news — that’s where the latest source of information is.”

Al Jazeera America, which debuted in 2013 after the Qatar-based Al Jazeera Media purchased the former Current TV network from former Vice President Al Gore and other investors for $500 million, will sign off with more than 60 million subscribers across numerous pay TV affiliates, including Comcast, Time Warner Cable, DirecTV, Dish Network and Verizon Communications’s Fios TV.

Several potential suitors, including Herring, have looked at purchasing Al Jazeera America’s assets, as well as its affiliate agreements, but at press time no deals were thought to be imminent.

“We’ve taken a very good look at the opportunities around Al Jazeera closing,” Herring said, although he would not provide specifics.

With distributors looking to pare down channel lineups amid rising programming costs and a loss of subscribers turning to less-expensive streaming services, industry executives say its unlikely any cable network will replace Al Jazeera America on distributor lineups.

“What we have found is the distributors are not saying to themselves, ‘Oh, we lost Al Jazeera and we need to fill that hole,’” Newsmax Media CEO Christopher Ruddy said. “I think there’s a lot of anxiety on the operator side of the business where they are not looking for new channels, and Al Jazeera was pushed on them because of existing deals.”

Indeed, Comcast and another major distributor confirmed to Multichannel News that they don’t plan to fill Al Jazeera America’s channel slot with a new or existing programmer.

Al Jazeera America’s demise comes as the unpredictable and contentious 2016 presidential campaign is driving big ratings for cable news networks. Fox News has won the lion’s share of weekly cable primetime ratings races so far this year, and is primed to finish the first quarter as the most-watched cable network in primetime.

CNN and MSNBC are also posting significant viewership upticks in ratings during the first quarter of 2016.

While both Herring and Ruddy lamented the loss of Al Jazeera America’s voice in the cable news landscape, they both said that there remains a need for independent news outlets that provide viewers with alternative voices to the big cable news networks.

“I’m always disappointed when a news channel disappears because I believe there is strength in diversity,” said Ruddy. “The other channels are much more polarizing, and the public would like a more informational-based channel.”

Added Herring: “We’re having the most interesting election taking place right now, and I do not recall another election that was important, entertaining and thought provoking. … I haven’t come across a single individual that doesn’t have a strong opinion on the candidates. It’s an important part of our democracy to ensure that all this information gets out to the viewers so that they can make an informed decision regardless of where one might fall.”

In an effort to assure its voice is heard, Herring earlier this month filed suit against AT&T, saying the company is reneging on a promise to carry its One America News and AWE networks on DirecTV. In a statement AT&T claimed the lawsuit to be “baseless,” adding that it has offered to carry both channels on DirecTV at reasonable, market-based terms.”

Herring said the networks would only cost 6 cents per channel, per month, which equates to 72 cents per year. “Although DirecTV will always take the position that the rates being requested are out of line and not fair and not what the market demanded, it’s not a fact,” he said.

STILL REACHING OUT

Newsmax’s Ruddy said the network will continue to secure distribution deals with multichannel distributors despite the difficult marketplace. He said Newsmax isn’t banking on benefitting from Al Jazeera’s demise, and said the 46 million-subscriber network actually had greater reach than Al Jazeera America with several distributors, including DirecTV.

“We looked at Al Jazeera, and the problem is that there is not a lot of interest by Al Jazeera to transfer agreements, and there’s not a lot of interest among the operators to fill those holes with channels just for the sake of filling them,” he said. “Newsmax has never seen itself as having to depend on one network or another failing — we’ve always been competing with ourselves to build a better product and a bigger audience.”

Herring Networks said its One America News Network has reached a deal to be launched by AT&T U-verse TV across the country. 

One America News Network will soon join the U-verse channel lineup in the cable news neighborhood on channel 208 in standard definition and on channel 1208 in high definition, the channel said. The broad carriage by AT&T U-Verse will give the independent, conservative news network more than 5 million additional subscribers, the programmer said. 

The startup, conservative-leaning news network (which launched July 4, 2013, and extensively covered the Conservative Political Action Conference this past spring under a sponsorship pact with American Conservative Union), had already obtained a carriage deal with the other big telco-TV provider, Verizon FiOS TV, though the U-verse distribution appears to be wider than the FiOS launch, which has the HD channel in the Ultimate HD package.

“We’re thrilled to give U-verse TV customers more choices by adding One America News Network to our channel lineup,” Ryan Smith, vice president of content acquisition at AT&T, said in a release. “The network is devoted to providing an independent and dependable source for news reporting around the clock along with commentary, programming and documentaries.”

“We’re extremely pleased for the support extended by AT&T U-verse in providing carriage to One America News Network. We’re grateful for the broad distribution and the channel placement within the cable news neighborhood next to other leading cable news networks,” Robert Herring senior, CEO of One America News Network, said in the release. “U-verse TV customers will be able to easily find our news channel and we’re confident that our programming lineup of national and international news, interactive talk shows, and current affairs programs will resonate well with U-verse TV customers.”

U-verse also carries Herring's Wealth of Entertainment, “AWE,” formerly WealthTV, on channel 470 in SD and 1470 in HD.