Verizon Fios is the latest provider to drop the One American News (OAN) network, a move that leaves the right-wing news channel without a major backbone, The Daily Beast previously reported. In a statement on its website, Verizon states that viewers will no longer be able to access OAN starting July 31.
“Our negotiation with OAN was a typical business-as-usual transport negotiation that occurs routinely between content distributors and content providers,” Verizon said in a statement to The Daily Beast. “These negotiations, as always, focused on economics, but OAN was unable to agree on fair terms.” Verizon did not immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.
OAN does not have a large broadcasting platform
OAN, owned by California-based Herring Networks, has been criticized for allegedly “spreading conspiracy theories and untruths.” In 2020, YouTube suspended the network’s channel after promoting a fake cure for COVID-19. OAN was also the subject of a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion, an electronic voting systems company, over false claims that its machines disrupted the 2020 US election. Smartmatic, another voting systems company, ordered OAN and other conservative broadcasters to retract their allegations of voter fraud.
Last year, 16 civil rights, human rights and media justice groups signed a letter urging DirecTV to drop OAN, which it eventually did. The AT&T spinoff decided in January not to renew its contract with OAN and officially shut down the channel in April. OAN responded by suing DirecTV and AT&T, claiming the companies had “bowed to political pressure” and could potentially lead to the network being shut down. Now that both Verizon and DirecTV have retired OAN, the channel no longer has a major broadcast platform in the US — OAN can now only be streamed online or on select local stations.