The move could lead to a backlash against AT&T's satellite-TV company, which has a 70% stake in the company.
DirecTV has been exposed to a social media backlash after it dropped the news channel One America Network OAN and its sister channel Wealth of Entertainment.
The satellite provider, which still holds a 70% stake in the company, did not claim a political motive for the move, as it was spun off from former corporate parent AT&T T-Get AT&T Inc. Report.
After a routine internal review, we informed Herring Networks that we do not plan to enter into a new contract when our current agreement ends, a DirecTV spokesperson said in a statement.
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 being censored for political reasons was trended on the social media site. Pew Research found that 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 rose to prominence during the Donald Trump presidency. The network bills itself as a news channel, but it has generally been used 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 epidemic and the 2020 election, according to the Jerusalem Post.
According to a report from the 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 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 phone and internet giant has denied that it has ever been a source of funding for OAN.