Politico Marks Newsmax TV Deal

Politico reported Tuesday about Newsmax Media’s new distribution agreement with DISH TV for its new channel Newsmax TV.

The deal follows a similar Newsmax deal reported two weeks ago with DIRECTV.

Politico, one of the nation’s leading political news websites, quoted Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy explaining that the channel will have a conservative tilt "focused on serving an audience of more than 80 million disenfranchised Baby Boomers."

Recently, Newsmax TV has been the subject of extensive stories in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, CNN and MSNBC. In March, Politico media writer Dylan Byers asked if Ruddy could be the "next Roger Ailes," president of the Fox News Channel.

Ruddy’s "achievements so far have been impressive: Newsmax.com is ‘the most-trafficked conservative site on the Web, with more than 11.5 million visitors in January, according to comScore'" Byers pointed out.

"Newsmax Magazine has a circulation of 200,000. The company brought in $104 million in revenue in 2013, up from $85 million in 2012. And Ruddy has political influence: Based in Boca Raton, Fla., he's within spitting distance of the Kochs, Limbaugh, Coulter, Trump, and 'virtually every Republican presidential candidate makes an obligatory visit.' (He's also friends with the Clintons.)"

The Newsmax TV channel will build on and benefit from an array of Newsmax Media multimedia assets, which include:

• The Newsmax Feed Network, now carried on approximately 2,000 websites with 1 billion page views monthly;
• Top ranked websites like Newsmax.com, Newsmaxhealth.com, and Moneynews.com, which draw close to 14 million unique monthly visitors, including more than 4 million opt-in email news alert subscribers.

With headquarters in West Palm Beach and Boca Raton, Fla., and additional studios in New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, Newsmax TV will initially launch with nine hours of original programming. The schedule will expand to 18 hours by year's end with an emphasis on practical, useful information that is relevant to the lives of a large, under-served adult audience.