Suddenly a hero to the far right, will Elon Musk swoop in and save One America News Network from pay TV carriage damnation?
The chances of the late John Kennedy Jr. suddenly resurfacing at a Dallas car wash are probably better.
On Thursday, Robert Herring, who owns the now very poorly distributed OANN, posted on the social media platform that Musk is currently trying to buy, Twitter, that "he'd 'just received a call from somebody very close to @elonmusk'" about the so-called richest man on earth possibly buying OANN.
Musk quickly shot that down "Only Twitter," Musk tweeted.
OANN lost its largest distributor in early April, when DirecTV demurred on extending the channel's carriage on its satellite TV and streaming pay TV platforms. In fact, in terms of pay TV distribution, OANN remains on Verizon Fios, which has just under 3.7 million subscribers, along with the TV/video services of a handful of small, regional cable operators.
OANN also has streaming distribution of OAN Plus via platforms like Pluto TV, but it will probably need a benefactor to keep the lights on much longer.
Not that Herring looks desperate or anything.
As for the self-made son of a South African emerald miner, Musk said earlier this week that he won't fulfill his commitment to pay over $33 billion in cash for Twitter until the social media company gives up all its data on bot and spam accounts. Twitter called Musk's bluff and is in the process of assembling and delivering that data. ■
