10 Things You Need to Know About Newsmax, the Surging Conservative News Network

Since the presidential election, the major cable news networks have seen their robust audiences begin to decline, as is the case every four years. However, one news network is bucking that trend in 2020: a smaller channel named Newsmax.

What is Newsmax? It is a right-leaning news network that has benefited greatly from a segment of the conservative base that has been angry at Fox News Channel for that network’s accurate decision to call the 2020 presidential election earlier this month in favor of the Democratic candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden, alongside every other major media outlet.

Newsmax might not have been on your radar until its recent ratings uptick, so here are 10 things you need to know about the surging conservative news network.

1. It’s been around for 22 years.

Newsmax Media has actually been in existence for more than two decades. It was founded as a conservative news-focused website in 1998 by a media executive named Chris Ruddy. “We were the Fox News of the online world,” Ruddy, Newsmax’s CEO, told Adweek.

In the ensuing years, the company moved more deeply into video, launching an OTT channel called Newsmax TV in 2014. That platform morphed into a cable news network later that year, as Ruddy looked to capitalize on an opportunity in the space.

“Cable news is a $6 billion market, with Fox News doing about $3 billion in business, and the center-left being divided between CNN, MSNBC and others,” Ruddy said. “Back then, there was no real competitor to Fox News, and I thought that there needed to be more diversity of opinion on the right, which led me to start Newsmax.”

Today, Newsmax says it is in 70 million households. The company is headquartered in Boca Raton, Fla., with offices in New York, Los Angeles and Washington.

2. It’s more ‘future’-focused than its rivals.

As opposed to its competitors, “Newsmax tends to be more focused on hard news,” Ruddy said. “If you go to Fox News, a lot of its news is sort of ‘off-political news.’”

Ruddy then paid a compliment to a network that is a polar opposite, ideologically: “I think what MSNBC did really great, and why it surged past CNN was when they used to call themselves ‘The Place for Politics.’ I think news viewers in this environment really like consuming politics. I think lifestyle issues are not as important.”

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Newsmax also takes a different approach to talent, Ruddy said, as it hopes to attract a younger audience.

“We just hired a young guy from Fox News [Rob Schmitt] who used to do their very early show, and he’s in his 30s and a very bright guy,” Ruddy said. “He’s thinking about the future of the United States, and that’s what we want our hosts to be doing. We want to be about the future.”

3. Ratings have increased nearly tenfold since Q3.

Newsmax’s recent ratings spike has come as President Donald Trump and some of his die-hard supporters have expressed anger at Fox News’ election night call that Biden had won Arizona—long before any other TV news outlet called the state for Biden.

To highlight how extreme the ratings growth has been: Newsmax averaged 37,000 total prime-time viewers and 30,000 total day viewers in Q3, according to live-plus-same-day data from Nielsen. But in October, the network averaged 96,000 prime-time viewers—almost triple its Q3 average—and 57,000 total day viewers.

Fast forward to November: From Election Day (Nov. 3) through Nov. 18, the network averaged 364,000 total prime-time viewers, nearly 10 times its Q3 average. And more notably, from the day other news networks called the 2020 election for Biden, Nov. 7, through Nov. 18, Newsmax averaged 400,000 total prime-time viewers.

Still, those linear numbers are just a fraction of its larger cable news rivals. From Oct. 26 to Nov. 17, Fox averaged 4.7 million prime-time viewers, CNN drew 3.4 million, and MSNBC averaged 3.1 million.

The two hours before prime time is when Newsmax is doing its most damage. Its top two shows, Spicer & Co. (at 6 p.m., featuring former White House press secretary Sean Spicer and Lindsay Keith) and Greg Kelly Reports (at 7 p.m.), averaged 816,000 total viewers during that same Nov. 7-18 interval. To cap it off, the Nov. 19 broadcast of Greg Kelly Reports (below) earned 1.1 million viewers, the network’s largest audience ever.

4. The network is seeing advertiser growth—though many brands are still keeping their distance.

As its profile increases post-election, Newsmax has been seeing noticeable advertiser growth across almost every category, according to Ruddy: pharma, health and beauty products, personal care, financial, insurance, food, CPG, lawn and garden, as well as travel and leisure.

“Ad revenues are tripling in Q4 compared to last year, and we expect ad revenues will double again by the end of Q1 2021,” he said.

However, despite the recent ratings surge and revenue growth, most major brands are continuing to keep their distance from Newsmax, as the network is too much of a lightning rod, several ad buyers told Adweek, speaking anonymously.

“Many of our advertisers are staying away from both right-leaning and left-leaning news outlets to avoid any hint of controversy on either side,” said one buyer. “That would make Newsmax a difficult sell.”

5. Newsmax still hasn’t called the 2020 presidential election.

The conservative network has fielded a lot of criticism for its decision not to call the election yet, nearly three weeks since election night and 16 days since all of the major news media outlets projected Biden as the winner.

Ruddy defended his network’s stance, saying he thinks Newsmax has “an eminently reasonable position,” which is that “one of the contestants is challenging the results in five states, and it is extremely close.”

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However, he is aware of the current state of the race—that Biden is far ahead and it would be extremely difficult for the president to move in front. “I believe as the states certify, we will project those states for the winner, and the Electoral College will confirm that,” he said. “We will make an appropriate call based on those certifications.”

Ruddy also feels that if the current results hold, Trump should concede and assist with a smooth transition. “I think he should already be preparing and working with Biden in case that happens,” Ruddy said. “We’re not jumping off a cliff here. I think we’re just taking a reasonable approach that half the country agrees with us on—or at least a very large number.”

6. “We won’t become Trump TV.”

Ruddy said that while Newsmax has a conservative slant, and he’s friends with Trump, Newsmax won’t become Trump TV come January.

“A lot of cable operators, before they took Newsmax, always asked me that same question,” Ruddy said. “There were some concerns. I always said, ‘Just look at our news coverage, and online. We’ve always kept an independence.’ Even though I have known the president for 20 years, when I first got to know him he was a Democrat.”

Ruddy is looking to keep Newsmax to remain independent, editorially. “We want to remain a news organization, and that’s why we won’t become ‘Trump TV.’ We’re not going to be a personality-driven channel,” he said, later adding, “I’ve disagreed publicly with President Trump. I’m very pro-immigration; I want a very aggressive, more open immigration policy for the United States. I think it’s really good for the country, and it helps all our futures if we do that. It’s not as monolithic as people make it out to be.”

7. Despite its conservative audience, “liberal” viewpoints are welcome.

Ruddy said that while Newsmax is a conservative network, “we’re also fair,” explaining, “we reach out to liberals, we’ve always reached out to have liberal commentators in the mix. We’ve been supportive of President Trump, and we have had articles critical of him.”

8. Newsmax is making plans for the Biden administration.

While Newsmax hasn’t called the election, Ruddy—who said, “I actually have a fairly high opinion of Joe Biden”—is already planning for what the network will look like under a Biden administration.

“I think Newsmax’s job is to be loyal opposition, to question the policies, the programs and the people that are coming into the Biden administration. We’re going to take a very careful look at that. I think we were pretty fair with Barack Obama. We were tough on him, but we never called for his impeachment. I think we want to take the same approach with Joe Biden,” he said.

Ruddy said Newsmax is also planning a new 9 p.m. show, led by a female anchor whom the network is in discussions with. “That show will be primarily focused on the female audience with female commentators,” Ruddy said. “We like the idea of breaking from the pack and doing something that appeals to women.”

9. The company isn’t for sale, but its CEO is getting offers.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Newsmax is in discussions with Hicks Equity Partners about a sale. However, Ruddy told Adweek that he has not looked to sell the company.

“I have known the Hicks through political and social circles for a long time,” Ruddy said. “They’re close to President Trump, and we had a brief conversation, but there was no deal, there was no negotiation for a deal.”

He added, “Through the years, I’ve been approached by various people that either want to invest or buy Newsmax, and I always find that very flattering. But we have focused on growing the company. I think we’re going to become a very powerful news property in the television world and online than maybe we already are.”

10. Its biggest goal: catch up to Fox News.

Newsmax has set its sights on catching up to Fox News, a goal Ruddy said is possible within the next year despite the fact that Fox News has been the most-watched cable news network for nearly two decades.

Ruddy claimed that when one factors in Newsmax’s OTT viewership and digital content consumption that’s not measured by Nielsen, the margin between Fox News and his network is tightening.

“I think the numbers are a lot closer than anyone ever imagined,” he said. “We’re on major devices like Roku and YouTube, and we estimate that at any given time, any given minute, we’re getting 50-100% more viewers than our Nielsen number indicates, and that puts us a lot closer to overtaking Fox.”

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Of course, unlike Fox News, Newsmax is for the moment a hybrid model in that it’s available both in the cable universe and free via OTT. It’s unknown how many more viewers Fox News would deliver if its programming was also available free to stream, but it’s safe to say that number would be considerable.

Fox News declined to comment on Ruddy’s ratings claims. However, data from social video measurement service Tubular Labs shows that Fox News had 36.9 million unique global viewers in October across Facebook and YouTube, watching a total of 1.5 billion minutes on those platforms, while Newsmax had 7.5 million unique viewers in the same month, viewing 75.9 million minutes in total.

Whether or not Newsmax is able to pull closer to Fox News’ ratings, the network still lags significantly behind its conservative news rival when it comes to revenue. According to S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Kagan, Fox News will generate an estimated $1.19 billion in net advertising revenue this year, and an additional $1.62 billion in affiliate revenue.

Newsmax TV, meanwhile, is on track to generate an estimated $25 million in net ad revenue, according to Kagan (which does not track digital revenue). The network does not charge affiliate fees and therefore receives no affiliate revenue.

Still, Ruddy remains optimistic that Newsmax will one day catch up to its rival: “The numbers are a lot closer in actual reach, even though there isn’t really the third-party rating yet on the OTT side,” he said. “But the audience is there.”

Additional reporting by Jason Lynch.