Pressure Builds For One America News

DirecTV’s decision to drop One America News Network puts pressure on the conservative cable outlet to replace that lost revenue, possibly by building out its online presence, reports Bloomberg.

For now, OAN’s strategy appears focused on finding new distributors in the traditional cable-TV business. In a video last week, Robert Herring Sr., OAN’s founder and chief executive officer, called on viewers to pressure TV providers, like Dish Network Corp. and Charter Communications Inc., better known as Spectrum, to carry the channel. Herring didn’t promote OAN’s app as an alternative for DirecTV customers, who will soon lose the channel, but did say that “we have a lot of options.”

On Jan. 14, DirecTV said it plans to drop OAN, which has been criticized for spreading misinformation about the pandemic and the 2020 election. DirecTV’s decision was first reported by Bloomberg News.

OAN relied heavily on revenue from DirecTV subscribers. In 2020, an OAN lawyer said in court that if the channel’s DirecTV contract ended, “the company would go out of business tomorrow,” Reuters has reported.

Only a few smaller TV providers, like Verizon Fios, still carry OAN in their channel lineups. The network lost coverage last year on Prism TV, a small telecom operator that phased out its video service.

But OAN is still widely available online. It has an app, One America News Plus, which can be purchased on streaming platforms like Roku. It’s also on Pluto TV, ViacomCBS Inc.’s free streaming TV service.

Its app, One America News Plus, has lost momentum in the past year. In January 2021, 517,000 people installed it, according to the data firm Sensor Tower. By December 2021, only 14,000 people installed it. The app, One America News Plus, charges $4.99 a month for a subscription.

OAN’s business on YouTube has also faced headwinds. In November 2020, YouTube suspended OAN from publishing new videos for a week after a post claimed the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine was a cure for Covid-19. YouTube also suspended OAN from its partner program so the channel can’t make money from advertising in its videos.

In the video which appeared last week on OAN, Herring said that “we don’t know exactly what we are going to do yet.”