What led to the abrupt termination of Newsmax from DirecTV? Know here.
The conservative news station Newsmax blasted DirecTV’s decision as “censorship” after it claimed it withdrew Newsmax due to a pricing disagreement.
The agreement for the satellite provider, an alliance between AT&T Inc. and private equity company TPG Inc., to carry Newsmax ended at 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday 24th January.
In an email, DirecTV said, “We wanted to continue to provide the network, but ultimately Newsmax’s requests for pricing increases would have led to dramatically greater costs that we would have had to pass on to our broad customer base.”
Newsmax said in a piece on its website that stations with fewer viewers receive more fees from DirecTV than it was looking for.
According to the story, Newsmax’s CEO, Christopher Ruddy, called the action “an obvious act of political discrimination and censorship against Newsmax.”
Republican legislators had already attacked DirecTV’s position. According to the firm, conservative programming is not restricted. A rival to Newsmax, One America News Network, was dumped by DirecTV last year.
The congressmen charged DirecTV with purposefully attempting to restrict conservative ideas on their platform, which they claimed, “suppresses political conversation” and “hamstrings our ability to engage with our people.”
Hunt claimed that elected Democrats were collaborating with businesses to censor ideas they considered to be false information, which may be seen as a violation of the First Amendment. He requested ratings information from the cable company in order to address their worries.
DIRECTV’S NEWSMAX RATINGS DROPPED SHARPLY
Newsmax’s ratings peaked at 277,000 viewers in late November, according to USTVDB data that Newsweek received. Ratings plunged to 123,000 after that and have not recovered.
Although it hasn’t been proven, low ratings may have contributed to Newsmax’s termination.
On its website and YouTube, Newsmax is still freely accessible. Additionally, DirecTV wants to take over the channel’s time slot.
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