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Tag Archives: DirecTV
Eric Bolling Asks Why Fox News Isn’t Backing Newsmax Against DirecTV
After Newsmax’s Eric Bolling spoke with Rep. Jeff Van Drew about DirecTV dropping the conservative network, he challenged Fox News over not speaking out on the subject.
DirecTV cut Newsmax from the line-up earlier in the week, citing a dispute over fees. The move sparked objections among conservatives and Republicans, including from ex-president Donald Trump.
Some Republicans in Congress have floated the idea of hearings over the move, a position Rep. Van Drew reiterated to Bolling on The Balance.
Van Drew said it wasn’t just a business move but “raw politics” and “censorship” on the part of DirecTV.
“We need fairness and freedom of speech. And Congress absolutely, I believe, has a responsibility to look into this,” he said.
After the Newsmax news broke, DirecTV announced the addition of right-wing network The First to the channel line-up, a move which The First star Dana Loesch said shows that “nobody was censored.”
Bolling, however, argued on his show this week that “low-rated liberal news channels” are paid the fees at issue, while “high-rated conservative channels are the ones that are being cut.”
Bolling asked whether Van Drew will follow-through with hearings, and the congressman responded “yes I will.”
After wrapping up the lengthy discussion, Bolling pointed out that when One America News (OAN) was dropped, Newsmax spoke out.
“We stood up for OAN. When OAN got de-platformed, we stood up for them. So it’s not about that. It’s not about just us,” he said.
He then challenged Fox News to speak out on Newsmax’s behalf.
“By the way, where are you, Fox? How about you, Fox?” he asked. “How about you stand up for us! We did it for OAN.”
Watch the clip above via The Balance on Newsmax TV.
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DirecTV changes Dak Prescott’s jersey color from blue to purple, at NFL’s request
You’ve likely seen, one or twice or more often, the DirecTV commercial featuring Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott and members of the various Real Housewives shows. The commercial includes no team names or logos, which means that DirecTV cut a check for Prescott but not for his employer, the Dallas Cowboys.
Recently, you may have noticed a subtle change to the commercial. While watching last night’s games on both ESPN and Amazon (the commercial ran during both West Virginia-Virginia Tech and Steelers-Browns), my son pointed out that Dak’s jersey is now purple. It previously was blue.
“Your son has a good eye,” a league spokesman told PFT. “We asked DirecTV to change it and they did, which we appreciated.”
The blue jersey in the original commercial looked too much like the Cowboys’ blue “home” jersey, which the Cowboys rarely wear at home. However, the courtesy in color change stopped with the shirts. Other blues in the uniform worn by Dak’s generic team remain, such as the socks.
DirecTV is in the last year of its Sunday Ticket package with the NFL. DirecTV reportedly pays $1.5 billion per year for the rights to do so. That obviously wasn’t enough to get the NFL to give DirecTV a pass when it comes to the potential similarity of Dak’s fictional uniform to his real one.
DirecTV loss could cripple rightwing One America News
Mississippi Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith speaks to a reporter from One America News Network (OANN) from a bus window after a tour around a section of the U.S.-Mexico border on a Texas Highway Patrol vessel in Mission, Texas, U.S., March 26, 2021. REUTERS/Go Nakamura
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WASHINGTON, Jan 15 (Reuters) – The largest satellite provider in the United States said late Friday it will drop One America News, a move that could financially cripple the rightwing TV network known for fueling conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.
The announcement by DirecTV, which is 70% owned by AT&T, comes three months after a Reuters investigation revealed that OAN’s founder testified that AT&T inspired him to create the network. Court testimony also showed that OAN receives nearly all of its revenue from DirecTV.
To read the Reuters report, click here: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-oneamerica-att/
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The Reuters report drew calls from some liberal groups for AT&T and DirecTV to drop OAN, a favorite of former President Donald Trump, because the network has become a key source of false claims about the election and COVID vaccinations.
On Thursday, President Joe Biden said COVID conspiracy theories are putting lives at risk. “I make a special appeal to social media companies and media outlets: Please deal with the misinformation and disinformation that’s on your shows,” Biden said. “It has to stop.”
OAN is owned by San Diego-based Herring Networks, a family of conservative tech entrepreneurs. CEO Robert Herring Sr did not respond to requests for comment by email and phone. In an interview with Reuters last year, he said his network provided an important voice. “If I think I’m right, I just go for it,” he said.
DirecTV, with approximately 15 million subscribers, is by far OAN’s largest carrier. According to testimony by OAN’s accountant reviewed by Reuters, DirecTV provided 90% of the conservative network’s revenue.
“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,” DirecTV said in a statement.
The OAN-DirecTV contract is set to expire in the next several months. DirecTV began airing OAN in April 2017, a deal that began shortly after OAN and AT&T settled a lawsuit over alleged oral promises during negotiations.
Former President Trump, speaking at a rally in Florence, Arizona, said OAN was targeted because of politics and urged his supporters to think twice about using AT&T’s services. “Maybe what we should do is not use AT&T,” he said.
On Twitter, some conservatives expressed outrage that DirecTV and AT&T planned to drop OAN. “Corporate Media is crushing what little dissent remains,” tweeted former Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs.
The pro-Trump right, however, has powerful outlets on television and online, including Fox News, the conservative cable news outlet founded by Rupert Murdoch.
Liberals cheered the news. NAACP President Derrick Johnson called it “a victory for us and the future of democracy.” In a statement, Johnson added: “At a time when we are seeing our rights infringed upon, OAN only seeks to create further division. … We must continually choose truth over lies and common sense over hysteria.”
The news also follows a lawsuit filed on December 23 by two Georgia election workers who accused OAN and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani of spreading false vote-rigging claims about them in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. The claims were debunked by state authorities. OAN has denied it has done anything wrong.
DirecTV did not elaborate on why it planned to drop OAN. Earlier, an AT&T spokesman said the company airs “many news channels that offer viewpoints across the political spectrum.”
The Reuters investigative report in October cited sworn statements in which OAN’s founder and his son testified that the inspiration for the conservative network came from AT&T executives.
“They told us they wanted a conservative network,” the elder Herring said during a 2019 deposition. “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.”
During a 2020 court proceeding, a transcript shows, an OAN lawyer told the court, “If Herring Networks, for instance, was to lose or not be renewed on DirecTV, the company would go out of business tomorrow.”
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Reporting by John Shiffman; Additional reporting by Jason Szep and Jonathan Allen; Editing by Ronnie Greene
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
DirecTV Dumps OAN, Leaving It With No Major TV Distributor
Former president Donald Trump, known for his gluttonous diet of TV news, is going to have trouble finding one of his favorite far-right channels, One America News Network, in a few months.
Satellite TV provider DirecTV, OAN’s largest distributor, said it was dumping the news network on Friday, Bloomberg reported. DirecTV’s decision is a huge blow to OAN, which is not available on any other major U.S. TV provider, but it’s not exactly a shock. OAN basically sued its way onto DirecTV in 2017 and has come under increased scrutiny since then for spewing lies, promoting conspiracy theories, and fomenting violence.
DirecTV confirmed that it was dropping OAN, part of Herring Networks, in a statement to Gizmodo on Friday. In addition to OAN, Herring Networks also owns the lifestyle and entertainment channel A Wealth of Entertainment, or AWE, which is targeted to the ultra-rich.
“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 spokesperson said in an email.
Both channels will disappear from the provider’s offerings in early April when its contract ends, according to Bloomberg.
DirecTV’s announcement is the latest move in the strange and suspicious saga between AT&T and OAN. To start off, DirecTV is partly owned by AT&T, which purportedly gave Herring Networks buckets of money to create OAN. Moreover, a Reuters investigation from last October indicates that Herring Networks could be in serious financial trouble in light of DirecTV’s decision. The network’s lawyer said in 2020 that if OAN’s contract was not renewed by DirecTV, “the company would go out of business tomorrow.”
Gizmodo reached out to OAN on Saturday for comment on DirecTV’s decision but did not hear a response by the time of publication. We’ll update this article if someone gets back to us.
Once April comes along, OAN is going to be hard to find on TV. It was never picked up by the other three major providers in the U.S.: Comcast, Charter Communications, or Dish Network. On its website, OAN tells viewers they can watch on a KlowdTV for $4.99 or $9.99 per month, as well as on Verizon FiOS, CenturyLink PRISM, GCI, and Vidgo.
Besides Verizon FiOS, I have never heard of the other providers and would probably think they were spam or full of malware if I didn’t write this article. (If they are not spam or malware, my apologies).
Media Matters, a progressive U.S. media research and information center, told Gizmodo in a statement that DirecTV made the responsible decision in dropping OAN, calling the network “a cauldron of misinformation and extremism.”
“Now that OAN’s anchor distributor has dropped them, Verizon FiOS (OAN’s second major distributor) should follow suit,” Media Matters president Angelo Carusone said. “And certainly no other cable provider should pick them up.”
Gizmodo reached out to Verizon to ask about the future of OAN on Verizon FiOS but has not heard back yet.
DirecTV drops Trump-friendly One America News
DirecTV says it plans to drop the right-wing TV channel One America News Network
BOSTON — DirecTV plans to drop One America News Network, significantly shrinking the reach of the right-wing TV channel friendly to Donald Trump and widely criticized for spreading misinformation including the former president’s false claim that he won the 2020 election.
The satellite television provider said Saturday that it has informed OAN’s owner, Herring Networks. Inc., that it will no longer carry its two channels when their contract expires. The other, AWA, is a lifestyle channel. The decision is believed to remove OAN from millions of homes.
“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 spokesman said in an emailed statement.
The spokesman would not say when the contract expires, but Bloomberg News, which first reported development on Friday, said it expires in early April.
San Diego-based Herring Networks did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Bloomberg said DirecTV is OAN’s largest distributor. On its website, Herring says OAN is carried by Verizon FiOS and several smaller TV providers. It can also be streamed online. Major cable companies including Comcast and Charter do not carry OAN.
AT&T has a 70% stake in DirecTV, which has carried OAN since April 2017 after AT&T settled a lawsuit demanding it carry the channels. Herring Networks had claimed AT&T reneged on an agreement to carry OAN on DirecTV, which it acquired in 2015.
OAN became a darling of Trump during his presidency and has continued to report his claim that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against him – a claim directly contradicted by the facts and exhaustive reporting. It has carried Trump live in post-presidency appearances, its reporters declining to challenge his contrafactual claims.
Dominion Voting Systems sued OAN and other right-wing broadcasters in August, claiming they damaged the election technology company’s business by trumpeting lies spread by Trump adherents that it was complicit in an election-rigging conspiracy.
DirecTV does not provide a breakdown of its subscribers, but AT&T reported that as of the second quarter of 2021 it had a total of 15.4 million paid premium TV subscribers including DirecTV, AT&T U-verse wireline video and the online service AT&T TV.
The paid TV market has been steadily shrinking as more people abandon it for streaming services.
One America News Will Be Dropped by DirecTV, a Major Distributor
The right-wing cable channel One America News Network — which has spread conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and the safety of coronavirus vaccines — will be dropped by one of its largest television distributors later this year.
The decision by the distributor, DirecTV, a satellite and streaming network with about 15 million subscribers, is a significant setback for One America News and its owners, the Herring family. Losing its slot on the DirecTV lineup will almost certainly diminish the network’s overall audience and cut into its annual revenue.
DirecTV on Saturday did not elaborate on the precise reasons behind its decision.
“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 spokesman for DirecTV said in an email on Saturday. DirecTV plans to also drop a second channel owned by the Herrings called AWE, which features lifestyle and entertainment programs.
Herring Networks did not respond on Saturday to requests for comment. The move by DirecTV was first reported by Bloomberg News.
Chanel Rion, the chief White House correspondent for One America News, derided DirecTV in a Twitter post on Friday that referred to the decision to drop the channel. “With moves like this, DirecTV will have to become state-owned to survive,” Ms. Rion wrote, adding, “They would have better luck in Pyongyang.”
One America News, which is based in San Diego, started in 2013. Beginning with the 2016 election, the network acted as a venue for viewpoints and coverage aligned with Donald J. Trump and his right-wing allies.
Its anchors have regularly questioned the outcome of the 2020 election. The network is facing defamation lawsuits from two election technology companies, Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems, that have accused the channel of spreading falsehoods that they manipulated vote tallies to swing the election to Joseph R. Biden Jr.
One America News has also promoted the false theory that left-wing agitators, and not Trump supporters, were the primary instigators of the Capitol riot.
This month, on the anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack, One America News ran a segment about “the patriotic demonstrations at the Capitol on Jan. 6” that suggested the attack was a so-called “false flag” operation by liberals intended to strip patriotic Americans of their liberties. “Leftist, Media Narrative Surrounding January 6th, 2021 Simply an Excuse for Democrats to Seize Power,” read an onscreen headline.
The channel has also aired false and misleading reports about the safety and efficacy of coronavirus vaccines. In June, one anchor, Pearson Sharp, told viewers: “The fallout from the coronavirus vaccine continues to grow, and the toll on human life is now worse than anyone could have imagined.”
DirecTV is one of only a few major television distributors that carries One America News; another is Verizon Fios. The channel is also available to stream online, and it maintains a popular YouTube page with more than 1.4 million subscribers.
One America News and DirecTV have a complex history.
The channel has been carried by DirecTV since 2017, in the wake of a lawsuit filed the previous year by Herring Networks against AT&T, the former owner of DirecTV. (Although DirecTV is now independent, AT&T has retained a significant stake.) A Reuters report last year, citing testimony from a network employee in a separate lawsuit, said that One America News had relied heavily on fees paid by AT&T-affiliated platforms to fund its operations.
San Diego’s OAN Losing its Biggest Revenue Source as DirecTV Cuts Ties
Three months after Reuters revealed the role of AT&T and its arm DirecTV in the launch of San Diego-based One America News Network, a plug is being pulled on the far-right outlet.
Bloomberg reported Friday that DirecTV, said to make up the bulk of OAN’s revenue, will drop the Trump-celebrating network in April.
Robert Herring Sr., founder and CEO of the outlet and parent Herring Networks, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment from Times of San Diego.
But OAN correspondent Chanel Rion, a defendant in two lawsuits, decried DirecTV via Twitter, citing what she said was a drop in its subscribers and saying: “Writing’s on the wall. At this rate DirectTV is set to be as relevant to the American consumer as a firearm safety course is to Alec Baldwin.”
OAN already was facing lawsuits seeking billions of dollars in damages over its election coverage — repeating false claims of vote-rigging by Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems.
Angelo Carusone, president of the left-leaning nonprofit Media Matters, said in a statement that DirecTV, America’s largest paid satellite-TV provider, made the “responsible decision to drop OAN.”
“OAN is a cauldron of misinformation and extremism,” he said. “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.”
Carusone called on Verizon FiOS, OAN’s second major distributor, to follow suit.
“And certainly no other cable provider should pick them up,” he said.
The NAACP also sought the ditching of OAN, with The Hill reporting that “NAACP President Derrick Johnson will be meeting with AT&T leadership tomorrow, October 21st. The meeting will focus on the need for AT&T to drop OAN immediately.”
The Daily Beast depicted the action as posing “an existential threat” to OAN, noting that an OAN accountant testified under oath in 2019 that the value of OAN without a contract with DirecTV “would be zero.”
“A source familiar with the network told The Daily Beast that OAN has struggled to fully staff its operations in recent months,” the site also said.
In October 2021, Reuters published a special report revealing AT&T’s central role in the creation and survival of One America News Network.
At the time, Carusone explained in a tweet thread the “golden ticket” AT&T provided the network, explaining how OAN and “all of its lies” would not exist without AT&T’s help prop up OAN financially.
AT&T spun off DirecTV, CNN media host Brian Stelter noted in his nightly “Reliable Sources” newsletter.
“It is unknown what proportion of the channel’s $$$ currently comes from DirecTV,” he wrote Friday night. “But the network’s website only lists a few other national carriers, Verizon FiOS chief among them, so OAN will be losing substantial audience and revenue due to this decision.”
Stelter speculated that Herring may “dig deep into his pockets to keep the fledging operation going.”
DirecTV told Reuters: “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.”
AT&T Inc, parent of DirecTV, entered into a deal with Herring Networks Inc in 2017, which included OAN and a little-watched lifestyle channel, AWE. DirecTV began carrying the networks in April that year.
AT&T has been a crucial source of funds for OAN, providing tens of millions of dollars in revenue, a Reuters investigation found last year.
Ninety percent of OAN’s revenue came from a contract with AT&T-owned television platforms, including DirecTV, according to 2020 sworn testimony by an OAN accountant.
The Republicans-against-Trump Lincoln Project labeled the move “a major win for democracy.”
DirecTV’s move is not without risk. Fans of OAN reacted as well to the news:
Others cheered the non-renewal announcement.
Bravo, DirecTV.
I’m sure your delusional viewers will start crying that this is the result of socialism. (Article from the Wall Street Journal, the bastion of liberal news. Yes, that’s sarcasm) pic.twitter.com/IPevLObcRE — A Maypole Mob (@a_maypole_mob) January 15, 2022
The Facebook page Republican Security Council reported the move as “bad news”:
DirecTV plans to drop OAN, dealing a major blow to the conservative channel which has broken many major stories. OAN was a favorite of the Trump administration, and they are excellent on national security coverage.
They were always allowed to asks questions at press conferences and briefings, and President Trump never failed to call on Chanel Rion…. As regular readers know, a number of our articles originated on OAN, and the channel is constantly on at RSC headquarters in Washington, DC.
Despite the troubling news — which OAN hadn’t noted on its website as of 8:50 p.m. — the network isn’t backing off platforming the 45th president.
OAN says: “We have a weekend programming alert for our viewers as former President Donald Trump is gearing up for a rally in Arizona. On Saturday, January 15th Trump will speak to tens-of-thousands of supporters in Florence, Arizona at 9pm ET/ 6pm PT.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
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AT&T Books $15.5 Billion Charge on DirecTV Unit
AT&T Inc. booked a $15.5 billion charge on its pay-television business, reflecting the damage cord-cutting has taken on its DirecTV satellite unit even as the company’s HBO Max streaming service’s growth ramped up.
The write-down created a fourth-quarter loss as the media-and-telecommunications giant weighs the potential sale of its pay-TV assets and executives focus their investments on newer technologies. The company reported quarterly revenue declines in its legacy-video and WarnerMedia units, offsetting gains in its core wireless-phone division.
Executives called the noncash accounting charge a sign of the pay-TV unit’s aging status as the Dallas company promotes an internet-streaming model that gives its content-production business a direct line to viewers.
“Our biggest and single-most important bet is HBO Max,” Chief Executive John Stankey said on a conference call Wednesday. Executives plan to expand the service’s footprint in other countries this year and launch an advertising-supported version in the second quarter.
Overall, AT&T reported a fourth-quarter loss of $13.89 billion, or $1.95 a share, compared with a profit of $2.39 billion, or 33 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue fell 2.4% to $45.7 billion.