Pro-Trump right-wing cable outlet One America News is launching a Spanish-language sister network that should debut this fall, the network’s founder and CEO confirmed to The Daily Beast on Friday.
OAN has been working on the launch of the separate channel specifically as a means to target a conservative Spanish-speaking audience, two sources familiar with the matter explained to The Daily Beast. The channel would largely feature the same far-right, conspiracy-peddling content that OAN has become known for since the start of the Trump era.
“It is accurate,” One America News CEO Robert Herring said when asked by The Daily Beast if he is setting up the new channel. “We think they need it,” he said of the potential conservative Latino viewership.
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As for a launch date, Herring declined to provide a specific date, instead asserting that it’s “gonna be around October, but not sure.”
In recent days, OAN has run graphics and chyrons declaring the channel is now hiring. According to one source with knowledge of the situation, the network is likely going to move one or two current Spanish-speaking OAN anchors over to the new channel and hire outside hosts and reporters to fill the rest of the slate.
Herring, who another source said has been “floating” this idea for “some time now,” is also working on a pitch to present to cable carriers for the new channel.
OAN’s foray into Spanish-language broadcasting comes amid a concerted push by right-wing media to appeal to a wider Hispanic and Latino audience after Trump’s electoral gains among such voters in the 2020 election.
In South Florida, for instance, Spanish-language radio has taken a hard-right turn recently, and one of the area’s last remaining moderate stations was just sold to a company that is considered “firmly conservative.”
In fact, both before and after the 2020 presidential election, Latino leaders from progressive Florida groups called out the Spanish-language media outlets in the area for peddling right-wing disinformation “that emboldens conspiracy theories.” Following former President Donald Trump’s election loss, for example, many Latino radio stations questioned the validity of President Joe Biden’s victory. At the same time, many of these stations also falsely blamed left-leaning activists and antifa for the Jan. 6 insurrection incited by then-president Trump.
