Fox News and Newsmax TV Studios will be viewed on the Fiserv Forum on July 14, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin the day before the Republican National Convention begins.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Newsmax It was released on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday as conservative cable news network viewers grew after the election of President Donald Trump and other right-wing politicians.
The network opened trading late Monday morning under the symbol “nmax” and priced at $10 per share before opening at $14 per share. It surged more than 700% in volatile trading on Monday.
NewsMax shares closed at $83.51 that day.
In September, NewsMax announced plans for an initial public offering in early 2025. On Friday, the company said it raised $75 million through sales of 7.5 million Class B common stock at a price of $10 per share.
The US pure play television network IPO is a rare one, indicating that there has been no match for Newsmax in recent decades. NewsMax’s IPO comes when traditional cable television is struggling as consumers flee the bundle in favour of streaming. Today, news and live sports are the biggest audiences and are grabbing most advertising revenue.
This debut also comes as the audience of right-wing primetime content grew with the rise of Trump and other right-wing politicians in recent elections.
Christopher Rady, the company’s founder and CEO, said on CNBC’s “Scoobox” on Monday he saw the opportunity to join the mix. Fox Corp. Fox News had no competitors in the “Centre Right Market.”
“I think there was a demand for more competition against Fox,” Rudy said Monday. Ruddy founded Newsmax as a digital product in 1998 before becoming a cable television network in 2014.
The cable news landscape is dominated by Fox News, CNN and MSNBC, but Newsmax has expanded its audience in recent years and is being offered through most major pay TV providers.
Ruddy said Monday that Newsmax is “Now behind CNN, the number four cable news channel in the US.” Nielsen confirmed on Monday that Newsmax ratings were “consistently” and “consistently” in fourth place after Fox News, MSNBC and CNN.
Still, according to Nielsen data, Newsmax viewers have yet to reach the breadth of Fox News. Between December 30th and March 20th, Newsmax averaged 309,000 primetime viewers and 211,000 daytime viewers. Fox News attracted an average of 3.1 million primetime viewers and roughly 2 million daytime viewers over the same period.
Overall, Newsmax ranks in the top 20 among average viewers on cable networks both during prime time and daytime, Nielsen said Monday.
“I think it’s a pretty big achievement for the new 10-year-old cable company,” Ruddy told “Squawk Box” on Monday.
As its popularity rose, Newsmax negotiated a license fee from its cable TV provider. In the early days, Newsmax relied on advertising revenue. In 2023, we resolved a dispute with DirectV. This has been removed for a short time from pay TV providers after pushing to receive their fees.
Once the company was released, Ruddy downplayed Newsmax’s pro-trump trends. This reached a $40 million settlement last year over the network’s false claims that voting machine companies are guise for the 2020 presidential election and supporting President Joe Biden.
“We are conservative on our independent news missions and believe we will ask difficult questions about the Trump administration,” Rudy told “Scokebox” on Monday.
In a post on social media platform X on Tuesday, Ruddy received a call from Trump and said the conversation touched on a variety of topics, including the company’s upcoming IPO. “I shared something new with Potus: “The rising Trump lifts all the boats!”,” Rudy wrote.
