Report: AT&T funds 90% of One America News Network

Reuters

Reuters reports it has discovered that AT&T played a crucial role in "creating and funding OAN, a network that continues to spread conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and the COVID-19 pandemic. OAN founder and chief executive Robert Herring Sr has testified that the inspiration to launch OAN in 2013 came from AT&T executives. 'They told us they wanted a conservative network,' Herring said during a 2019 deposition seen by Reuters. '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.' Since then, AT&T has been a crucial source of funds flowing into OAN, providing tens of millions of dollars in revenue, court records show. Ninety percent of OAN’s revenue came from a contract with AT&T-owned television platforms, including satellite broadcaster DirecTV, according to 2020 sworn testimony by an OAN accountant. Herring has testified he was offered $250 million for OAN in 2019. Without the DirecTV deal, the accountant said under oath, the network’s value 'would be zero.'" An AT&T spokesperson declined to comment on the testimony about OAN’s revenue streams, citing confidentiality agreements. “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,” said AT&T spokesperson Jim Greer. “Any suggestion otherwise is wrong.”