Right Side Broadcasting Network

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Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN) is a right-wing media outlet founded by Muscle Shoals native Joe Seales.

During the early days of the 2016 presidential election campaign, Seales contracted a freelancer to live stream Donald Trump's July 11, 2015 rally at the Phoenix Convention Center. That stream reached more than 1,000,000 views on YouTube, inspiring the Seales, who was then unemployed, to launch an online network. He moved the network and his family from Pensacola, Florida to a house in Opelika, where they could take advantage of the city-owned high-speed fiber network.

As the campaign continued, Right Side Broadcasting distinguished itself for streaming unedited footage. Donald Trump also praised them for being the only broadcasters to pan around the venues, showing the size of the crowds. Seales brought his friend Adam Taxin on board as RSBN expanded to also live-stream press WikiLeaks press conferences and other political events.

In 2016 the channel garnered more than 250,000 YouTube subscribers, more than mainstream media outlets like MSNBC, and took in $1.1 million from advertising revenues and private donations. Seales' brother, Jacob, provides original music for the network.

The network expanded its content with programs hosted by Mike Cernovich, Nick Fuentes, Wayne Dupree and Pastor Mark Burns, as well as content from YouTube prankster "Joey Salads". Through the campaign's social media director Joe Scavino, RSBN became the producing partner for "Trump Tower Live", a post-debate "analysis" show created by the campaign, as well as for "news updates" shared on Donald Trump's Facebook page. Some media observers speculated that, assuming Clinton won the election, that Trump would develop the partnership into a "Trump TV" network.

When Trump won the election and took office, RSBN live-streamed the unofficial "DeploraBall" inaugural event and was later promised media access to the White House Briefing Room. It moved its Opelika studio out of Seales' house and opened a Washington D.C. office near the Capitol on 2nd Street Southeast. Seales' mother, who had volunteered to moderate the network's comment sections, was promoted to supervising a team of two dozen moderators.

Although its physical access to the briefing room proved sporadic, RSBN has streamed White House-supplied video feeds. It has also continued to livestream Trump's post-inauguration re-election campaign rallies and other events, and has struck revenue-sharing deals with right-wing social media figures like Dennis Michael Lynch, Kassy Dillon and Will Nardi. RSBN's content has been prominently shared by Breitbart News and the Drudge Report.

In March 2017 YouTube updated its policies for what content was available for monetization through its advertising programs. The change reduced RSBN's revenues at the same time that donations, which had been a major source of income during the campaign, had dropped off considerably. The network apologized in April 2017 after Fuentes stated that mainstream media outlets like FOX and CNN were controlled by "globalists" and said that it was, "time to kill the globalists." By July, Right Side dropped several of its produced shows and cut its staff from twelve to four.

The Network's prospects brightened as Trump began campaigning for the 2024 presidential election. In June 2023 RSBN counted more than 1.57 million YouTube subscribers and also streamed on Rumble, where it is hosted alongside the Trump Media & Technology Group's Truth Social platform.

Programs

  • "Trump Tower Live"
  • "America First with Nick Fuentes"
  • "The Wayne Dupree Show"

References

  • Tani, Maxwell (September 18, 2016) "Meet the man behind Right Side Broadcasting, the network that live-streams every Donald Trump speech." Business Insider
  • Borchers, Callum (October 22, 2016) "Trump TV already exists. It’s called Right Side Broadcasting." The Washington Post
  • Stelter, Brian (October 24, 2016) "Trump campaign launches nightly 'newscast' on Facebook." Money.CNN.com
  • Rosenblum, Michael (December 9, 2016) "Right Side Broadcasting Network Gets White House Press Room Credentials... Who???" Huffington Post
  • Miller, Alfred (January 14, 2017) "Pro-Trump TV Network Has Big-League Dreams." POLITICO.
  • "Auburn internet startup catapulted to fame with Trump campaign falls on hard times." (July 4, 2017) The Washington Post / The Birmingham News

External links