DIRECTV Dropping One America News Network, A Trump Favorite, Despite Lawsuit

One America News Network, an avid supporter of Donald Trump during his presidency, is still on track to get kicked off of the massive DIRECTV satellite platform next month. This would likely force the channel off the air. However, OAN is not giving up without a fight.

AT&T announced in January that its subsidiary DIRECTV would drop OAN in April after its carriage agreement expired. However, it still continues to do advertising sales for OAN via its subsidiary Xandr (which is in the process of being sold to Microsoft). This was revealed in a lawsuit filed by the channel in California State Court in San Diego against AT&T, DIRECTV and others last week. But there was plenty of dirt in the court filing which still will need to be aired in open court if AT&T won’t settle.

Robert Herring Sr., the founder and CEO of Herring Communications is seeking $1 billion in damages, arguing that DIRECTV’s decision to drop OAN was politically motivated, which AT&T has publicly denied. However, the lawsuit claims that on January 14, 2022 OAN President Charles Herring was told by DIRECTV SVP of Content Rob Thun that they were dropping the network and the decision was made at the Board level and was “political.”

AT&T board Chairman William Kennard is a registered Democrat who was appointed FCC chairman by President Bill Clinton in 1997 and ambassador to the European Union by President Barack Obama in 2009.

Along with AT&T and DIRECTV, Herring Networks is suing Kennard personally along with Staple Street Capital, where Kennard serves on the Executive Board of Directors. Staple Street is the majority owner of Dominion Voting Systems, which is suing Herring Networks, Robert Herring, Charles Herring and two OAN reporters for $1.6 billion for coverage on OAN claiming that Dominion voting machines provided incorrect data leading to Donald Trump losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden.

Herring claims in the lawsuit that Kennard’s executive roles at both AT&T and Staple Street cause a conflict of interest. AT&T told Times of San Diego on March 12, “These allegations are completely without merit, particularly as they relate to AT&T and our independent chairman.”

The lawsuit attacks Kennard directly, stating, “Herring is confident that discovery will further demonstrate that Kennard was directly involved in DIRECTV’s decision to non-renew OAN and that Kennard has a personal, political and financial interest in destruction of OAN that is inconsistent with his fiduciary obligations to AT&T shareholders.”

It also states that Kennard was appointed Chairman of AT&T’s Board three days after Joe Biden won the presidential election, and around the same time, Staple Street’s Web site underwent a full transformation and “all information about Staple Street’s investment in Dominion and Kennard’s role as a member of Staple Street’s Executive Board of Directors vanished.”

In the lawsuit, which claims breach of contract, breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, intentional interference with business expectancy and violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law, Herring claims OAN ranks ahead of CNBC, CNN Headline NewsFox Business and Newsmax in the ratings (according to data from AT&T as of the third quarter of 2021).

The data shows that OAN was ranked 24^th (excluding broadcast networks) out of over 300 channels, placing OAN in the top 10%.

In the lawsuit, Herring claims that in 2013 AT&T approached Herring about launching an alternative conservative –leaning network as a competitor to Fox News Network. That’s not surprising as Fox News Channel is the most expensive basic cable network on the air.

In 2013, it charged cable and satellite operators more than $5/month/subscriber, almost 4x the second most expensive channel at the time (TNT at almost $1.50/month/subscriber) and 9x more expensive than CNN (which charged $0.63/month/subscriber).

In 2014, OAN entered into a carriage agreement with AT&T. When regulators pushed back against AT&T’s plan to acquire DIRECTV in 2014, Herring claims that AT&T enlisted OAN’s help to lobby the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to approve the purchase.

As a small, independent network, Robert Herring met with FCC officials, hired lobbyists and signed filings in favor of the acquisition which were ghost written by AT&T, according to the lawsuit. In exchange, AT&T promised to carry OAN and another network owned by Herring Networks (A Wealth of Entertainment, or AWE) on the video platforms U-Verse and AT&T.

After the FCC approved the acquisition in 2015, Herring claims AT&T and DIRECTV reneged on their promise to carry OAN and AWE, forcing Herring to file suit. AT&T settled, and signed an agreement to carry the channels for five years starting in 2017.

AT&T may end up settling the suit (as it did in 2016 when Herring sued AT&T for violating a verbal contract to carry OAN) just so no more of its dirty laundry is shown in public (click here for an in-depth expose by Reuters on AT&T’s relationship with OAN and former president Donald Trump).

Indeed, all of the public outcry came following the Reuters article (which was reported on in a number of major publications) with many liberal groups (including the NAACP) calling on DIRECTV to drop OAN. It was certainly under a lot of pressure to do so with all of the negative media coverage.

An interesting point in the lawsuit is that Herring Networks claims that AT&T violated a non-disparagement provision in the contract because reporters at CNN, John Oliver and other on-air personalities made negative (sometimes extremely) comments about OAN (which we will not reprint here but feel free to peruse the lawsuit) and its news coverage. However, because of another clause in the contract regarding confidentiality, it’s unlikely that these employees knew about this non-disparagement clause so it will be interesting how the Judge rules on this point. Stay tuned, the next hearing is set for May 6 before Judge John Meyer.