Tag: Rick Santorum

According to a story by Amy Maclean in Cablefax, Newsmax has “quietly” renewed its carriage deals with cable and satellite firms. Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy says, “By the end of 2023, we have signed renewals with all of our major operators – Comcast, Charter, DirecTV, DISH and Verizon Fios. When I started this a while back, people said they weren’t going to let any new channels on cable anymore. And we’ve basically, I think, been accepted and are now a member of the club. I think we’re here to stay.” In order to get compensation from these multichannel video programming distributors, Newsmax shuttered its free steaming channel on November 1. Interestingly, Ruddy tells Cablefax that contrary to what people might assume, the arrival of Donald Trump on the political scene didn’t help Newsmax’s efforts. “I think President Trump has added great difficulty to Newsmax because there’s so much hostility in the industry and world against him. The media establishment, but also in the cable industry, he’s not a really liked figure. We were having more success I felt before he was elected in 2016. I think we probably would have gotten more carriage earlier had he not been elected… We try to reach out to both sides. While we have a lot of pro-Trump stuff, we also have people like Rick Santorum. He has been you know very critical of him through the years and he’s now our leading political adviser… Our night leads with Greta Van Susteren, and she’s not a polarizing figure.” Read the Cablefax piece here.