According to Dan Joseph of MCRtv, Dish Network’s Charlie Ergen might have a more political reason for taking the nation’s #1 cable news network, FOX News Channel and FOX Business Network, off its airways.
Charlie Ergen: A big-time donor to the Democratic Party
Joseph dug into the background of Dish Network’s founder and chairman Charles Ergen and found that “Ergen is a big-time donor to the Democratic Party. According to Open Secrets, Ergen donated a total of $64,000 to the Democratic Senatorial campaign Committee in 2014. In the 2014 cycle Charlie Ergen gave almost exclusively to Democratic candidates particularly to endangered Senate Democrats including Kay Hagen(NC), Mark Pryor (ARK.), Mark Warner (Va) and Mark Begich (Alaska).”
Charlie Ergan’s histroy of abusing his position of power
What’s more is that Charlie Ergen has a history of “abusing his position of power to promote his political preferences” says Joseph, citing a 2012 federal complaint was filed against Ergen in which several company executives alleged that he had intimidated them into making contributions to specific candidates, the majority of which were Democrats.
Specifically, insiders noted that Bernard Han, Dish’s Chief Operating Officer, was told by Charlie Ergen that he “would suffer consequences if he refused” to support Ergen’s political candidates. It’s unclear whether the Federal Elections Committee investigated the allegations.
While having a straight news division, FOX News is home to some notorious conservative talking heads like Sean Hannity, which might explain why the network is in Charlie Ergen’s crosshairs. FOX News hasn’t taken the issue lightly, and some of its biggest stars have come out claiming censorship from Dish. And judging from his political background, it doesn’t seem farfetched to think he took the top cable news network off air for his partisan preferences.
