The struggle between mainstream communications and dissident platforms continues.
In another blow to alternative media, Verizon will be dropping One America News Network (OAN) from its channel offerings, citing an inability to reach a new agreement on a contract.
In a statement provided to The Hill, the telecom provider said that as of July 31, it will no longer have the rights to OAN and the channel will disappear from its lineup.
“Our negotiation with OAN has been a typical, business as usual carriage negotiation like those that routinely happen between content distributors and content providers,” read Verizon’s statement.
According to Verizon, the split is the result of economic considerations, not ideological ones, with the company claiming OAN did not agree to “fair terms.”
“Our company has long advocated for providing customers with the ability to choose what content they want to watch, and our Fios TV platform offers a wide and diverse choice of programming options, including a la carte options, that strive to meet our millions of customers’ various content needs and preferences,” Verizon added.
The news comes after DirecTV passed on renewing its contract with OAN in January. Following the end of that contract, Verizon had become OAN’s largest distributor. With the termination of this contract, only minor carriers will be left delivering OAN to television viewers.
OAN also faces an ordeal on the legal front in the form of a lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems related to claims made on the network that Dominion voting machines were used to steal the election for Biden in 2020 — claims Dominion denies.
Dominion also slapped Newsmax with a lawsuit over similar coverage, to which the outlet replied that “in its coverage of the 2020 Presidential elections, Newsmax simply reported on allegations made by well-known public figures, including the President, his advisors and members of Congress — Dominion’s action today is a clear attempt to squelch such reporting and undermine a free press.”
The Daily Beast reports on OAN’s current situation:
According to industry site NextTV, after DirecTV axed OAN, the channel was only estimated to make $550,000 a month from pay-TV carriage fees — most of which came from Verizon.
Now, that’s gone.
Currently, the only cable provider in the U.S. still offering OAN is Alaska-based General Communications Inc. Unfortunately for the network, GCI is only available in a little over 100,000 households and is looking to completely ditch cable for streaming. Beyond that, OAN is available on little-known digital platforms Vifgo and KlowdTV.
An insider at OAN reportedly told The Daily Beast that, in light of these circumstances, the network is looking to revamp its business by focusing on developing online content designed to go viral on social media.
The challenges faced by OAN highlight the way in which the doors to mainstream diffusion of information have essentially been closed to all those who refuse to parrot the official narrative. It echoes the rapid fall of Parler, which quickly rose to prominence amid widespread dissatisfaction with mainstream social media’s censorship, only to be crippled when Silicon Valley giants such as Amazon, Apple, and Google colluded to bring it down.
Both Parler and OAN demonstrate why it is crucial that the dissident Right not become overly dependent on mainstream platforms. The movement cannot persist without getting information out to the masses, of course. But conservatives should strive to do so by building and fostering their own platforms.
That means having their own websites with trustworthy hosting. It also means a return to mediums — such as print — that cannot be brought down with the single click of a mouse. This is the model that The John Birch Society and The New American presented for decades, building an independent publishing institution of books, magazines, and films that has a broad circulation regardless of any punitive action Mark Zuckerberg may decide to take.
Naturally, mainstream social-media platforms can be utilized to get the word out to the general public. But from there, the goal should always be to guide readers and viewers to the new, independent platforms.
In the battle for the soul of America, too much is at stake for us to wage the information war exclusively on enemy-controlled terrain.
