Conspiracy Channel OAN Pouts More, Sues DirecTV For Kicking It To The Curb
from the good-luck-with-that dept
Back in January DirecTV finally decided to axe OAN, the conspiracy and fantasy channel, from its cable lineup. The decision came just three months or so after a blockbuster report showed that AT&T not only helped fund and set up the “news” outlet, but it came up with the idea. OAN has been notorious for spreading false claims ranging from non-existent election fraud to the false claim that COVID was developed in a North Carolina lab as part of a government plot.
OAN didn’t respond well. It first freaked out and had its “reporters” attack a minority AT&T board member in a bid to try and make it seem like the decision was both racial and political. Now OAN has filed a lawsuit against DirecTV, in which it (of course) plays the victim:
“This is an action to redress the unchecked influence and power that Defendants have wielded in an attempt to unlawfully destroy an independent, family-run business and impede the right of American television viewers to watch the news media channels and programs of their choice,”
Accusing DirecTV, the fading satellite TV remnants of AT&T’s bungled media and video ad strategy, as having “unchecked influence and power” is pretty funny just as a baseline. AT&T’s been losing subscribers to streaming hand over fist, and is likely facing a short remaining life span. AT&T/DirecTV didn’t violate its carriage contract with OAN, it simply chose not to renew it, which is its right.
While Dallas-based AT&T executives did originally fund and come up with the idea for OAN, things have shifted dramatically for AT&T and DirecTV since OAN’s creation several years ago. The company’s $200 billion acquisitions of DirecTV and Time Warner flamed out spectacularly, forcing it to sell much of the assets to recoup its massive debt load as it backed away from its TV and video advertising ambitions and refocused on telecom.
That included selling off DirecTV into a new joint venture with private equity firm TPG Capital, which now has a 30 percent stake. With TPG Capital in the mix the company was simply less tolerant of the propaganda patty cake OAN is playing in ratio with the money they made off the extremely limited number of people that actually watched channel.
In the suit, OAN tries to claim that because OAN and the Herring family of channels still have an ad contract with AT&T’s former ad-arm Xandr (recently sold to Microsoft after AT&T bungled that at as well), it believed its carriage contract would be renewed. But again, there’s nothing illegal here.
As countless other U.S. cable programming makes clear, most cable and broadcast companies couldn’t care less about ethics, and would air pretty much anything they could get away with if it made them money, so the idea that DirecTV was somehow being vindictive or political doesn’t make sense, and OAN’s case doesn’t seem likely to gain much traction.
Filed Under: cable, carriage, channels, disinformation, propaganda, television, tv
Companies: at&t, directv, oan, oann
Comments on “Conspiracy Channel OAN Pouts More, Sues DirecTV For Kicking It To The Curb”
Damn that cancel culture is kicking in again.
“OAN tries to claim that because OAN and the RED Herring family of channels”
Corrected the name for them.
“This is an action to redress the unchecked influence and power that Defendants have wielded in an attempt to unlawfully destroy”
The influence and power being, erm, owning property and being able to decide which contracts to which they are a party. Unless I’m missed something they’re not attempting to block contracts elsewhere.
If anything, this just seems to be another object lesson in not tying your entire business to a single provider, although in OANN’s case I’m guessing that there weren’t many takers other than the entity that paid for it to exist in the first place. This seems to be a regular problem – when these people whine about being kicked off a platform, the problem is usually that they were totally dependant on the platform, but apparently assumed they were above any rules.
It’s also funny how this is coming into the court in March, even though the non-renewal of the contract was announced in January. Perhaps there was an expected payment in rubles that suddenly became less valuable than when they started the deal? It surely can’t take nearly 2 months to file a suit, but I can imagine them scrambling around to find a plan B when the expected quick victory in Ukraine was met instead by heavy resistance, seizure of oligarch property and the collapse of the Russian economy.
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I mean, maybe it takes that long to find a lawyer who’ll actually write up bullshit like this for them…
Re: 2 months to file a lawsuit
It absolutely can take 2 months to pour over the contracts, research applicable law, find applicable precedent, and draft a competent legal brief. Making the decision to actually file requires weighing the costs versus the benefits. As well, it is reasonable to warn a party their actions would result in a suit privately, and then provide time for the other party to respond. Such a response would generally involve lawyers, and the research necessary to make a competent coherent response. There is a reason Dominion didn’t file suit for months after the claims Dominion stole the election began.
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It absolutely can take 2 months to pour over the contracts, research applicable law, find applicable precedent, and draft a competent legal brief.
But… they didn’t do any of that, which raises the question of what took them so long?
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* pore
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“It absolutely can take 2 months to pour over the contracts, research applicable law, find applicable precedent, and draft a competent legal brief. . Making the decision to actually file requires weighing the costs versus the benefits”
Maybe. A counterpoint – it’s reported that OAN got about 85% of its revenue from DirecTV, so without a massive change inits business mode (or a huge injection of cash from an outside benefactor), they’re dead in the water even before Dominion is in a position to strip its bones.
The contract renewal date was known, and any competent lawyer working for them should have been aware that it might not be renewed after the AT&T staff who created it were not in control, and prepared accordingly. If the best they have after this time is a vague claim that DirecTV should not be in a position to choose what it carries, then if not desperate scrambling after promised Kremlin cash dried up, it smells like lawyers trying to file as many billable hours until the inevitable happens.
“There is a reason Dominion didn’t file suit for months after the claims Dominion stole the election began.”
Well, IIRC the reason being largely that they had a much stronger case once they could prove actual damages and they’d already asked the networks they originally sued to stop lying about them first.
Entitlement culture really is going for the gold, innit?
Interesting litigation strategy to claim AT&T defamed them because CNN ran critical stories about them. I haven’t watched OAN but I would be shocked if they haven’t similarly criticized CNN.
I am sure however that criticism of CNN is merely exposing mainstream bias while criticizing OAN is defamation and with malice to boot.
Unchecked power otherwise known as the first amendment
“This is an action to redress the unchecked influence and power that Defendants have wielded in an attempt to unlawfully destroy an independent, family-run business and impede the right of American television viewers to watch the news media channels and programs of their choice,”
Yes indeed, how dare the broadcaster make use of their entirely legal first amendment and property rights to decide not to renew a contract with a toxic channel spreading garbage.
Clearly the courts need to step in an force the broadcaster to uphold OAN’s non-existent right to be heard on the platform of their choice, otherwise the right to use private property against the wishes of the owner will be at risk and who wants to live in a country like that?
Market forces not many people want to watch a weird right wing channel when they can watch fox news for right wing content
low audience equals few advertisers turns out tv networks can choose what channels they broadcast or what contracts they want to renew thats just normal business and maybe the new network does not want to broadcast extreme right wing content or conspiracy theory’s
Simple economics
It looks like a simple economic consideration for DirecTV, How much value does OAN provide for the money it will be paid.
Don’t forget that liabilities have a negative value.
Remember that OAN wouldn’t even have existed in the first place if AT$T hadn’t created it.
The problem AT$T had is that it, unlike FOX, had non-cultist customers to alienate.
“…more popular than anyone knows” – Trump
Somewhere more than zero viewers, maybe…
What “family”?
(Emphasis added)
OAN is a family-run business? Since when?
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I think it’s a self-admission that they regularly engage in nepotism.
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Even if it was… so what? Much like people families can be assholes so ‘family-run’ means nothing any more than ‘run by people with pulses’ would.
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Since the Mafia is “the family.”
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I assume they mean “family” as in “Manson Family”, not as in generational small business.