AT&T holds a 70% stake in AT&T's satellite-TV company, which may cause a backlash against the satellite-TV company.
DirecTV has been exposed to social media backlash as it has dropped the news channel One America Network OAN and its sister channel Wealth of Entertainment.
The satellite provider, which is still holding a 70% stake in the company, did not claim a political motive for the move, which was spun-off from former corporate parent AT&T T.
After a routine internal review, we did not plan to enter into a new contract when our current agreement ends, a DirecTV spokeswoman said in a statement.
Both OAN and a Wealth of Entertainment are owned by Herring Networks, which was founded by Robert Herring Sr.
Far right-wing voices see the move as political and took to Twitter to express their disdain.
The idea that OAN was censored for political reasons was trended on the social media site. According to Pew Research, OAN captured 7% of people who identify as Republican. That relatively small audience, however, has been very dedicated to the channel.
OAN was founded in 2013 and gained a lot of attention during the Donald Trump presidency. The network has been called a news channel, but it has generally operated as a supplier of unchecked information designed to bring in right-wing viewers.
OAN, which rose to prominence amid the triumph and tumult of the administration of then-President Donald Trump, has been criticized for spreading conspiracy theories about the COVID 19 pandemic and the 2020 election, according to the Jerusalem Post.
According to a Reuters investigation, AT&T played a major role in OAN created by Herring.
They told us they wanted a conservative network, Herring said during a 2019 deposition seen by Reuters. They had only one, which was Fox News, and they had seven others on the other left-wing side. When they said that, I jumped to it and built one. According to court records, AT&T, which used to be fully owned DirecTV, provided OAN with tens of millions of dollars. According to a 2020 sworn testimony by an OAN accountant, ninety percent of OAN's revenue came from a contract with AT&T owned television platforms, including satellite broadcaster DirecTV.
The internet and telephone giant has denied it has ever been a source of funding for OAN.