Newsmax TV crew member Steam Irons at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held in National Harbor, Maryland on Saturday, February 24th, 2024.
Tom Brenner | Washington Post | Washington Post | Getty Images
Conservative Cable Channel Stock Newsmax The day after the dizzy debut of stocks on the New York Stock Exchange, the early trading spiked over 100% on Tuesday.
Newsmax shares spiked over 700% on its first trading day on Monday, closing at $83.51 per share. The shares opened the day at $14 per share.
The volatile trading stock surge has given the company a valuation of over $10 billion. Founder and CEO Christopher Rudy owns Class A shares and 81.4% stake in the company, joining the billionaire rank after the IPO. As of Tuesday, Ruddy’s interest was worth more than $6 billion.
On Tuesday, Newsmax emailed investors, emphasizing that they would ride their inventory on the first day of the transaction.
Trading on Tuesday continues to be a surprising rise in pure play cable TV stocks. Even if news and live sports have gained the biggest audience, the industry has been struggling in recent years as consumers flee the cable bundle in favor of streaming.
According to Nielsen, the right-wing television channel has gained traction during President Donald Trump’s second term, and is the fourth-most seen cable news channel after Fox News, MSNBC and CNN. Ruddy said on Monday on CNBC that he transformed the company from a digital media outlet into a cable channel to capture market share from Fox News.
Still, its viewers pale in comparison to the dominant conservative channel fox.
According to Nielsen Data, 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.
“We hate bundles. Bundles are terrible for the cable industry. They are terrible for the consumer,” Ruddy told CNBC’s Squawk Box on Monday. Newsmax has started receiving fees from paid TV distributors in recent years, primarily to carry the network after receiving advertising revenues when building viewers.
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