“If Herring Networks, for instance, was to lose or not be renewed on DirecTV, the company would go out of business tomorrow,” OAN lawyer Patrick Nellies told the court, a transcript shows. When that case went to trial last year, the network’s lawyer told the jury that AT&T was keeping OAN afloat. The confidential OAN financial records are drawn in part from testimony, including by Herring and the accountant, generated during a labor lawsuit brought against OAN by a former employee and unrelated to AT&T. The court filings also cite a promise by OAN to “cast a positive light” on AT&T during newscasts. The records include a reported offer by AT&T to acquire a 5% equity stake in OAN and AWE, though the two sides ultimately signed a different deal. The state and federal court documents reviewed by Reuters detail a lucrative relationship for OAN with AT&T, even as the two occasionally tangled in court. “Hope everybody is watching right now,” Trump tweeted on December 1, citing a dubious report about a truck carrying more than 100,000 fake ballots. In his final two years in office, Trump touted the network, known as online, to his 88 million Twitter followers at least 120 times. The network continues to shower Trump with attention and often provides a friendly platform for his Republican allies.Īs president, Trump frequently urged supporters to watch OAN. OAN’s influence rose in late 2015, when it began covering Trump rallies live, at a time when some of the media still saw the New York celebrity businessman as a longshot presidential contender. Herring, who just turned 80, is a self-made businessman who amassed a fortune in the circuit board industry, then turned to television and boxing promotion. The Herrings declined interview requests. Their AT&T deal includes Herring’s other network, a little-watched lifestyle channel, AWE. Herring and his adult sons own and operate OAN, a subsidiary of their closely held San Diego-based Herring Networks. Greer said that figure is inaccurate, but declined to say how much AT&T has paid to air OAN, citing a non-disclosure agreement. According to an AT&T filing citing Herring’s numbers, those fees would total about $57 million. “Any suggestion otherwise is wrong.”Īlthough the contracts are confidential, in court filings Herring cited monthly fees included in one five-year deal with AT&T. “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,” Greer said. He said that DirecTV broadcasts “many news channels that offer viewpoints across the political spectrum.” television subscriber base, including satellite and streaming services, fell from 26 million in 2015 to 15.4 million as of August.ĪT&T spokesman Jim Greer declined to comment on the testimony about OAN’s revenue streams, citing confidentiality agreements. AT&T acquired DirecTV in 2015 and in August spun off the satellite service, retaining a 70% share in the new, independently managed company. Without the DirecTV deal, the accountant said under oath, the network’s value “would be zero.”ĭallas-based AT&T, a mobile-phone and Internet provider, also owns entertainment giant Warner Media, which includes CNN and HBO. Herring has testified he was offered $250 million for OAN in 2019. 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. 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. When they said that, I jumped to it and built one.” “They only had one, which was Fox News, and they had seven others on the other side. “They told us they wanted a conservative network,” Herring said during a 2019 deposition seen by Reuters. OAN founder and chief executive Robert Herring Sr has testified that the inspiration to launch OAN in 2013 came from AT&T executives.
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