Newsmax, led by Chris Ruddy, who is well-connected in GOP circles, has in recent weeks used its platform and political power to pressure DirecTV into paying up.ĭirecTV said that it found such behavior “troubling,” calling out Newsmax for promoting “inaccurate and misleading information” about the dispute as it publishes an endless stream of content targeting the satellite carrier.

They’ve accused DirecTV - which just added another right-wing talk channel to its lineup - of censoring conservative voices.

DirecTV has also balked at paying for the same content that streams to users for free on other platforms, such as Roku.īut Newsmax - and Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill - have advanced a wholly different narrative, one unsupported by the facts in the case. DirecTV has refused, saying that it does not want to pass on added costs to its subscribers for a channel that a small percentage of viewers actually watch. “Put simply, this is a typical business dispute that has nothing to do with ideology, politics or censorship – despite unfounded accusations to the contrary by Newsmax, its CEO, its commentators and others,” DirecTV said.Īt the center of the dispute: Newsmax has demanded DirecTV pay millions in carriage fees to continue including the channel in its lineup. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here. In a letter sent to prominent Jewish Newsmax supporters who had expressed concern about the matter, DirecTV effectively accused the network of waging a dishonest pressure campaign against the company that mischaracterized a run-of-the-mill carriage dispute as a nefarious act of anti-conservative censorship.Ī version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter.

The satellite carrier, which refuses to buckle to pressure and pay millions of dollars to broadcast the network’s low-rated programming, unleashed on the right-wing talk channel on Tuesday. All niceties have been thrown out the window as DirecTV finds itself ensnared in an ugly carriage dispute with Newsmax.

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