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Two years after being cast out of the White House, Stephen K. Bannon spoke from a steep, dusty hill outside El Paso, asking for donations. The former investment banker and Hollywood producer wanted cash in 2019 for his latest quest, to privately build President Donald Trump’s stalled border wall.
Not many news outlets were paying attention — except for one focusing on his every word.
It wasn’t Fox News or Newsmax. It wasn’t even Breitbart News, the far-right website Bannon once led, using it to help remake the GOP and elect Trump.
The coverage came from an upstart network run by a little-known media mogul in Colorado, a felon with a record of unpaid taxes and a family history marked by tragedy and violence. The mogul, Robert J. Sigg, found news value in Bannon’s mission to the desert, which ultimately resulted in fraud charges.
When Bannon launched his own talk show in the fall of 2019, calling it “War Room,” he quickly handed over its distribution to Sigg.
More than two years later, the arrangement has paid off for both men. Sigg used “War Room” as a springboard for an expanded network of conservative hosts — bringing him the commercial opportunity he sought.
The network, Real America’s Voice, helped sustain Bannon despite his removal from YouTube, Spotify and other mainstream platforms. It brings his show into as many as 8 million homes hooked up to Dish satellite television, many in rural, conservative areas without reliable cable coverage.
The rise of Real America’s Voice, built around Bannon and distant from the traditional power structures of cable television and talk radio, reveals how the country’s fractured media landscape has empowered unconventional actors following market incentives toward more and more extreme content.
“We were told fairly regularly we were Trump propaganda,” said a former Real America’s Voice producer, who, like about a dozen other current and former employees of Sigg’s business, spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid professional reprisal. “That is what our role was. That was the message from the top: ‘We’re a Trump propaganda network.’ That’s where the money was.”
That market was left open when Fox News and Newsmax pulled back from topics most motivating to Trump’s base, said Bannon, such as resistance to vaccines, cries of voter fraud and unproven ideas about federal agents provoking the pro-Trump riot at the Capitol.
“War Room” focuses on those topics. Its influence comes not just from the number of people watching, which is difficult to measure across platforms, but also from the audience’s willingness to take political action, whether marching against vaccine mandates or running for local office. The show, broadcast live six days a week from Bannon’s Capitol Hill townhouse, is the gathering point for the pro-Trump movement — with Bannon embracing the role of a wartime general leading followers into 2022, or what he calls the “valley of decision.”
“Breitbart was very powerful, but this is five times more powerful,” Bannon said in an interview with The Washington Post following a recent show, which featured four candidates courting Trump’s base and a tech entrepreneur-turned-critic of coronavirus vaccines.
He credited the show’s reach to its little-known distribution partner. “They get it out everywhere,” Bannon said of Real America’s Voice, which he said gives him a cut of advertising revenue, though he declined to specify his earnings, saying, “I’m not doing this for money.”
Bannon has never shied away from idiosyncratic backers — whether hedge fund magnate Robert Mercer, whose family funded Breitbart, or exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui.
But his latest patron may be his most unusual yet. Sigg, whose criminal record includes a federal conviction for bank fraud, built his media business on weather news and outdoor sports. He has given large sums of money to Democrats.
Sigg did not respond to requests for comment. A network spokesman, Mark Serrano, did not respond to numerous specific questions but said in an email: “The market for real, honest news is growing, and will continue to grow so long as the mainstream media continue to abandon any and all semblance of journalistic integrity.”
Sigg’s news venture makes possible more expansion, including into cryptocurrency. Last summer, he discussed turning the network’s footage from Trump rallies into non-fungible tokens, according to people familiar with his comments.
Despite his ambitions, Sigg’s operation remains small and unpolished. An internal email reviewed by The Post said correspondents lacked “TV 101 skills.” A former manager said he became incensed in the fall of 2020 after learning that the network was taking feeds from Fox News and other outlets without crediting them, calling Sigg and his fellow executives “the gang that couldn’t shoot straight.”
But Bannon warned not to bet against Real America’s Voice. “They knew us,” he said. “And they knew we were quality content.”
Their boss is Sigg, 57, who presents himself as a highflying media executive. An examination by The Post of state and federal records sheds light on a winding path to his new perch, one marked by arrests and civil lawsuits.
Today, Sigg wears a designer Hermès belt and flies on private jets, according to images reviewed by The Post. He has a hands-on management style, said people who have worked for him, which extends to dictating individual shots and “huffing and puffing and yelling” about mistakes, as one former employee recalled. Then, he stalks around the office handing out $50 bills to people he had dressed down the day before, according to people who have witnessed his behavior.
A since-deleted online bio cites Sigg’s long record in advertising and television media, including at a firm conducting sales for Dish, whose revenue he helped expand by $250 million before leaving in 2004. A year later, Sigg pleaded guilty to bank fraud as part of what authorities described as a multimillion-dollar mortgage fraud scheme. Sigg falsely verified someone’s employment for a loan application and received a $1,000 check for his role, according to a plea agreement. He was ordered to pay restitution and sentenced to five years of supervised release.
By that time, Sigg had faced legal problems stretching back decades, according to Colorado court records, including drug, assault and harassment charges, as well as civil claims involving disputes over money. Between 1997 and 2010, he amassed more than $235,000 in unpaid federal taxes, according to a lien filed against him in January 2012 and withdrawn within weeks.
Later in 2012, Sigg’s family came under a public spotlight when his 17-year-old son, Austin, kidnapped, killed and dismembered a 10-year-old girl. He was sentenced to life in prison. The elder Sigg said at the time, “This horrible event is a tragedy for both the families, as well as the community.”
At least two of Sigg’s adult children now work for his company, Performance One Media, which was registered in Colorado in 2006, records show, a year before his old firm filed for bankruptcy protection. His daughter handles human resources, according to current and former employees, and his son works with Real America’s Voice, a Performance One subsidiary. They did not respond to requests for comment. A former employee said, “You can’t go to HR, because it’s the owner’s daughter you’d be talking to.”
Bannon, who was charged with contempt of Congress this past fall after defying a Jan. 6 committee subpoena, said he was untroubled by Sigg’s criminal record, calling him and his business partners “scrappers from the cable business.”
Two years after being cast out of the White House, Stephen K. Bannon spoke from a steep, dusty hill outside El Paso, asking for donations. The former investment banker and Hollywood producer wanted cash in 2019 for his latest quest, to privately build President Donald Trump’s stalled border wall.
Not many news outlets were paying attention — except for one focusing on his every word.
It wasn’t Fox News or Newsmax. It wasn’t even Breitbart News, the far-right website Bannon once led, using it to help remake the GOP and elect Trump.
The coverage came from an upstart network run by a little-known media mogul in Colorado, a felon with a record of unpaid taxes and a family history marked by tragedy and violence. The mogul, Robert J. Sigg, found news value in Bannon’s mission to the desert, which ultimately resulted in fraud charges.
When Bannon launched his own talk show in the fall of 2019, calling it “War Room,” he quickly handed over its distribution to Sigg.
More than two years later, the arrangement has paid off for both men. Sigg used “War Room” as a springboard for an expanded network of conservative hosts — bringing him the commercial opportunity he sought.
The network, Real America’s Voice, helped sustain Bannon despite his removal from YouTube, Spotify and other mainstream platforms. It brings his show into as many as 8 million homes hooked up to Dish satellite television, many in rural, conservative areas without reliable cable coverage.
The rise of Real America’s Voice, built around Bannon and distant from the traditional power structures of cable television and talk radio, reveals how the country’s fractured media landscape has empowered unconventional actors following market incentives toward more and more extreme content.
“We were told fairly regularly we were Trump propaganda,” said a former Real America’s Voice producer, who, like about a dozen other current and former employees of Sigg’s business, spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid professional reprisal. “That is what our role was. That was the message from the top: ‘We’re a Trump propaganda network.’ That’s where the money was.”
That market was left open when Fox News and Newsmax pulled back from topics most motivating to Trump’s base, said Bannon, such as resistance to vaccines, cries of voter fraud and unproven ideas about federal agents provoking the pro-Trump riot at the Capitol.
“War Room” focuses on those topics. Its influence comes not just from the number of people watching, which is difficult to measure across platforms, but also from the audience’s willingness to take political action, whether marching against vaccine mandates or running for local office. The show, broadcast live six days a week from Bannon’s Capitol Hill townhouse, is the gathering point for the pro-Trump movement — with Bannon embracing the role of a wartime general leading followers into 2022, or what he calls the “valley of decision.”
“Breitbart was very powerful, but this is five times more powerful,” Bannon said in an interview with The Washington Post following a recent show, which featured four candidates courting Trump’s base and a tech entrepreneur-turned-critic of coronavirus vaccines.
He credited the show’s reach to its little-known distribution partner. “They get it out everywhere,” Bannon said of Real America’s Voice, which he said gives him a cut of advertising revenue, though he declined to specify his earnings, saying, “I’m not doing this for money.”
Bannon has never shied away from idiosyncratic backers — whether hedge fund magnate Robert Mercer, whose family funded Breitbart, or exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui.
But his latest patron may be his most unusual yet. Sigg, whose criminal record includes a federal conviction for bank fraud, built his media business on weather news and outdoor sports. He has given large sums of money to Democrats.
Sigg did not respond to requests for comment. A network spokesman, Mark Serrano, did not respond to numerous specific questions but said in an email: “The market for real, honest news is growing, and will continue to grow so long as the mainstream media continue to abandon any and all semblance of journalistic integrity.”
Sigg’s news venture makes possible more expansion, including into cryptocurrency. Last summer, he discussed turning the network’s footage from Trump rallies into non-fungible tokens, according to people familiar with his comments.
Despite his ambitions, Sigg’s operation remains small and unpolished. An internal email reviewed by The Post said correspondents lacked “TV 101 skills.” A former manager said he became incensed in the fall of 2020 after learning that the network was taking feeds from Fox News and other outlets without crediting them, calling Sigg and his fellow executives “the gang that couldn’t shoot straight.”
But Bannon warned not to bet against Real America’s Voice. “They knew us,” he said. “And they knew we were quality content.”
'Scrappers’
In a studio outside Denver, next door to a youth prison, 15 or 20 people put Real America’s Voice on air. Many are in their 20s or 30s and earn about $30,000 per year, said current and former employees.Their boss is Sigg, 57, who presents himself as a highflying media executive. An examination by The Post of state and federal records sheds light on a winding path to his new perch, one marked by arrests and civil lawsuits.
Today, Sigg wears a designer Hermès belt and flies on private jets, according to images reviewed by The Post. He has a hands-on management style, said people who have worked for him, which extends to dictating individual shots and “huffing and puffing and yelling” about mistakes, as one former employee recalled. Then, he stalks around the office handing out $50 bills to people he had dressed down the day before, according to people who have witnessed his behavior.
A since-deleted online bio cites Sigg’s long record in advertising and television media, including at a firm conducting sales for Dish, whose revenue he helped expand by $250 million before leaving in 2004. A year later, Sigg pleaded guilty to bank fraud as part of what authorities described as a multimillion-dollar mortgage fraud scheme. Sigg falsely verified someone’s employment for a loan application and received a $1,000 check for his role, according to a plea agreement. He was ordered to pay restitution and sentenced to five years of supervised release.
By that time, Sigg had faced legal problems stretching back decades, according to Colorado court records, including drug, assault and harassment charges, as well as civil claims involving disputes over money. Between 1997 and 2010, he amassed more than $235,000 in unpaid federal taxes, according to a lien filed against him in January 2012 and withdrawn within weeks.
Later in 2012, Sigg’s family came under a public spotlight when his 17-year-old son, Austin, kidnapped, killed and dismembered a 10-year-old girl. He was sentenced to life in prison. The elder Sigg said at the time, “This horrible event is a tragedy for both the families, as well as the community.”
At least two of Sigg’s adult children now work for his company, Performance One Media, which was registered in Colorado in 2006, records show, a year before his old firm filed for bankruptcy protection. His daughter handles human resources, according to current and former employees, and his son works with Real America’s Voice, a Performance One subsidiary. They did not respond to requests for comment. A former employee said, “You can’t go to HR, because it’s the owner’s daughter you’d be talking to.”
Bannon, who was charged with contempt of Congress this past fall after defying a Jan. 6 committee subpoena, said he was untroubled by Sigg’s criminal record, calling him and his business partners “scrappers from the cable business.”
