Court Laughs Off OAN Conspiracy Network’s Claim It Was ‘Censored’ By DirecTV
When last we checked in with One America News (OAN), it was trying (with the help of numerous Republican AGs) to pretend that DirecTV's decision to boot the barely watched conspiracy network from its cable lineup was part of a vast, diabolical cabal to censor conservatives. The AG lawsuit filed last March pulls out the traditional Conservatives are being censored" victimization complex:
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."
In reality, DirecTV executives simply didn't think the channel was worth the trouble, so they didn't renew OAN when the carriage agreement expired. Cable executives would air no limit of dangerous and unhinged gibberish if it made them money. But OAN's viewership to headache and liability ratio was never a good mix for the already struggling satellite TV provider
A preliminary ruling by Judge John Meyer of California Superior Court in San Diego County shot down OAN's breach of contract allegations, setting the stage for what's expected to be a case dismissal. DirecTV filed an anti-SLAPP motion to strike the Herring Networks (OAN's parent company) complaint, and DirecTV's motion was granted in part and denied in part:
As to the breach of the implied covenant claim, to the extent it is based on the non-renewal of the Affiliation Agreement, the claim fails because the agreement contains a fixed expiration date and no provision entitling Herring to a renewal."
Despite making a lot of headlines for dangerous bullshit (like the idea COVID was crafted in a North Carolina lab), the news channel never really saw all that many actual viewers. One estimate pegged daily viewership at around 14,000 a few years ago, and that was before the channel got kicked off of DirecTV and Verizon, its biggest distributors.
Without its two major cable distributors, OAN's now mired in a scrum for attention with an endless sea of far right wing conspiracy influencers and grifters on the Internet. While also fending off other much more notable lawsuits, including Smartmatic's defamation lawsuit against One America News for spreading baseless election-fraud conspiracy theories.