Aiming to provide an alternative to Fox News with a particular focus on America’s post-World War II generation, Newsmax took a big step Thursday toward entering the television business.
The conservative website announced in a statement that Newsmax TV inked a distribution deal with DirecTV to reach more than 20 million subscribers.
The channel expects additional distribution deals in the future as part of its effort to serve what the company described as “an audience of more than 80 million disenfranchised Baby Boomers.”
Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy said in the statement that the channel will have natural appeal to the website’s existing audience of boomers.
“Our launch will benefit from the existing Newsmax.com audience that is already in place, will naturally be drawn to our brand of news, features and useful information and consists of one of the highest concentrations of baby boomers on the web,” Ruddy said.
Ruddy told Businessweek in March that he envisioned his 24-hour cable news channel as a “kinder, gentler Fox.”
In an interview with CNN’s Brian Stelter the same month, Ruddy said it might be an overstatement to say that Newsmax was “taking on Fox.” He said there are plenty of conservative viewers for both channels and that he wanted Newsmax TV to take a more “informational” approach than Fox.
“I think there’s clearly a lot of room for Newsmax to come in where we’re focused not just on politics, which Fox is focused on, but a lot of lifestyle issues, health, news and financial, practical information,” Ruddy said.
(Above: Ruddy talks with Stelter in March)
You mean, kinda like “The AARP meets Glenn Beck channel”?
Look at their ad in the lower right hand column of this page and it tells you all you need to know about Newsmax programming.
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And this is exactly why Republicanism is dying. Now there’s yet another place for conservatives to consume bullshit, to enclose Republican voters even further into their ideological bubble of utter nonsense, and to force Republican pols to take increasingly extreme positions. This doesn’t at all help the Republican Party or spread their message, it just helps to further radicalize their already batshit voters.
Word. “a kinder, gentler Fox?” You don’t have to spend more than one minute on NewsMax to know that it’s loonier yet far less sophisticated than Fox, if that’s possible. If Fox is your loutish, obnoxious Uncle-in-Law spouting rampant dumb at family picnics, NewsMax is the weird hoarder down the street who pickets city hall to complain about fluoride being a Commie plot to weaken our manly juices.
Us magazine is targeted at folks who find People magazine too substantive.