Dominion settlement imperils Fox News’ far-right rivals

Deep-pocketed Fox News can probably withstand the $787.5 million payout in its settlement with Dominion Voting Systems.

But that may not be the case for the conservative network’s far-right rivals, The Daily Beast reports.

One America News Network and Newsmax are both facing lawsuits from Dominion and Smartmatic, among others.

The parade of lawsuits against the right-wing networks all center around false claims of election fraud in 2020.

Dominion’s lawsuit against OANN states that the network “helped create and cultivate an alternate reality where ... Dominion engaged in a colossal fraud.”

The Daily Beast’s Justin Baragona writes that “Essentially, the voting-systems company is arguing that both Newsmax and OAN overtly tried to boost their ratings and directly appeal to disgruntled MAGA fans.”

Fox News remains mired in litigation. It is facing a $2.7 billion Smartmatic lawsuit, along with a lawsuit from former producer Abby Grossberg on allegations she was pressured into giving false testimony in the Dominion case, and a shareholder revolt targeting executives over Fox’s airing of conspiracies that damaged the company.

But Fox News has a market capitalization of approximately $17.3 billion, and according to CEO Lachlan Murdoch has $4.1 billion in cash on hand.

OANN and Newsmax are both are privately held companies, which makes it difficult to assess what they’re worth.

Baragona writes: “Conservative businessman Robert Herring, who launched OAN in 2013, pegged the network’s value in 2019 at $250 million. However, that was almost entirely due to the channel’s deal with DirecTV at the time, as an accountant swore under oath at the time that OAN’s value ‘would be zero’ without the AT&T-backed satellite carrier. DirecTV dropped OAN last year, followed by other cable providers.”