Newsmax can call off its Republican allies threatening government intervention against DirecTV: The right-wing cable outlet and the pay-TV provider have finalized a new deal to carry the network after months of public beefing.
“Newsmax recognizes and appreciates that DirecTV clearly supports diverse voices, including conservative ones,” Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy said in a press release announcing the new deal. “As a standalone company, DirecTV helped give Newsmax its start nearly a decade ago as it continues to do with upcoming news networks, which is why we are pleased to reach a mutually beneficial agreement... over the next several years.”
DirecTV CEO Bill Morrow similarly gushed: “This resolution with Newsmax, resolving an all-too-common carriage dispute, underscores our dedication to delivering a wide array of programming and perspectives to our customers. Through our persistent negotiations, we reached a resolution under mutually-agreeable business terms allowing us to deliver the conservative news network at the right value—a reflection of the free market at work.”
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According to the press release, the pro-Trump cable channel will return to DirecTV’s service on March 23. The network was pulled after the previous agreement had expired on Jan. 25, kicking off an ugly two-month battle that featured Newsmax and its GOP supporters accusing DirecTV and its corporate partners of colluding with Democrats to silence conservative speech.
While Newsmax maintained that the pay-TV provider was practicing “political discrimination” by “de-platforming” the network and refusing to pay it a “fair and equitable” license fee, DirecTV insisted it was merely a standard business dispute over costs. Specifically, the satellite carrier said it didn’t feel it should pay Newsmax increased fees for content the right-wing network provides free elsewhere.
“This deal marks the end of a months-long carriage dispute that stemmed from financial differences with Newsmax and is ending with an agreement that comes at no additional cost to our customers,” a DirecTV representative told The Daily Beast on Wednesday. “It has always been our desire to provide Newsmax, and never about limiting conservative voices, a view that Newsmax now recognizes and accepts.”
The representative added: “The terms of the renewal—which includes a multi-year distribution deal—were not disclosed.”
DirecTV had carried Newsmax for free (and was initially paid a fee by the network) since the channel’s launch in 2014. During the latest negotiation, Newsmax was looking for a new deal that would potentially pay the network tens of millions of dollars a year.
A Newsmax spokesperson said in a statement that while the network had “raised the issue of censorship relating to our removal, we now believe in DIRECTV‘s commitment to distributing diverse viewpoints, including conservative ones.” Additionally, the spokesperson stated that the carrier “has made clear during our negotiations” that they were mostly focused on rising programming costs and “never intended to limit one perspective or to target conservative voices.”
While the channel now says they “accept their position” that DirecTV wasn’t engaged in a nefarious liberal plot to censor right-wing content, Newsmax spent the past two months relentlessly telling viewers to cancel DirecTV and drop products by AT&T—the satellite carrier’s corporate parent. At the same time, the network and Ruddy begged the government to interfere on its behalf amid the stalled negotiations.
Even before DirecTV officially dumped the MAGA channel in late January, Newsmax had enlisted dozens of GOP lawmakers to exert political pressure in an effort to force DirecTV to accept the network’s demands for increased fees. Republicans in both the House and Senate sent letters to DirecTV threatening the carrier with investigations while accusing the company of colluding with liberals and government officials trying to “censor” conservatives.
DirecTV, meanwhile, responded to the channel’s GOP allies by warning them that Newsmax was peddling “significantly inaccurate” information about its ratings and the satellite carrier’s financial relationship with other networks.
Newsmax, for instance, falsely claimed that DirecTV was paying “22 liberal news channels”—many of which had lower ratings than Newsmax—while refusing to agree to dish out any carriage fees to Newsmax. On top of that, DirecTV recently added right-wing channel The First to its channel lineup—a move that flew in the face of Newsmax’s narrative about anti-conservative bias.
Despite the politically charged nature of what should have been a run-of-the-mill dispute about cable TV fees, and Newsmax placing DirecTV squarely in the middle of conservatives’ “cancel culture” war, the satellite carrier had said all along that it was willing to bring Newsmax back to its service. Just as long as the terms were right.
