Aaron M. Sprecher via AP
Newsmax was dropped from DirecTV after negotiations stalled between the conservative cable news outlet and the major television provider.
“On multiple occasions, we made it clear to Newsmax that we wanted to continue to offer the network, but ultimately Newsmax’s demands for rate increases would have led to significantly higher costs that we would have to pass on to our broad customer base,” DirecTV told The Daily Beast in a statement early Wednesday.
DirecTV, which boasts more than 13 million subscribers, is home to a significant portion of Newsmax’s viewership. Before being dropped by DirecTV, the network was available in around 50 million homes.
At issue is Newsmax’s demand to be paid carriage fees by the cable provider. The network has been airing for free on DirecTV since 2014, according to the Daily Beast, in an effort to grow its viewership.
Justin Baragona at the Beast reported:
Under their current arrangement, Newsmax has not been paid any license fees to air its programming on DirecTV’s service. This is a typical deal between pay TV carriers and fledgling channels trying to expand their audience. At the same time, DirecTV has carried Newsmax since the channel’s launch in 2014, and the network hasn’t received carriage fees throughout its tenure. (In its recent renewals with Verizon, Dish Network, and NCTC, however, Newsmax now receives such fees.)
Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy accused DirecTV of a politically motivated hit on the network.
“This is a blatant act of political discrimination and censorship against Newsmax,” he said in a statement. “The most extreme liberal channels, even with tiny ratings, get fees from AT&T’s DirecTV, but Newsmax and OAN need to be deplatformed.”
Newsmax has received some help from Congress in its bid to remain on DirecTV.
More than 40 House Republicans sent a letter to the AT&T-owned company earlier this week claiming it was “deplatforming” Newsmax and another right wing cable network, OANN, which was dropped last year.
Newsmax saw its audience grow steadily in the last several years after exploding in the aftermath of the 2020 election when Trump supporters briefly turned away from Fox News. Trump himself encouraged his fans to change the channel to Newsmax and OAN, seeing Fox as insufficiently loyal and credulous of his stolen election conspiracy theory.
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