It’s been a while since we checked in on how Newsmax is handling itself since it went public in April, and, well, it’s become even more self-promotional:
- In mid-April, it posted a promotional page called “The Newsmax Reach” in which it hypes how big and rich its audience supposedly is.
- A May 2 article hyped how “The Newsmax channel made significant ratings gains across all weekday dayparts, compared to the same period last year.”
- A June 1 press release cheered how Newsmax “expects to list on the U.S. small-cap Russell 2000® Index, effective after the U.S. market opens on June 30, 2025, as part of the 2025 Russell indexes reconstitution.”
- A June 2 article gushed that “President Donald Trump took to his Truth Social platform Sunday to promote Newsmax’s company shares. Trump republished a full article from the respected Financial Times about Newsmax’s recent debut as a public company on the NYSE (NMAX).”
- A June 9 press release touted how its Newsmax2 streaming channel saw an “increase of 25% in total viewership year-over-year.” Ed Henry was listed as a Newsmax2 host, though his history of sexual harassment was not mentioned; a week later, it was announced that Henry had settled with one victim shortly before the case was to go to civil trial.
One Newsmax TV host got to interview his boss, and hype the company, for a June 10 TV appearance:
Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy told Rob Schmitt on Tuesday night that President Donald Trump deserves an A+ for his job performance so far.
In a one-on-one interview Newsmax’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight,” Ruddy also said Newsmax has reported significant growth since the company went public on the NYSE this past March. He said the company expects such growth to continue.
[…]Schmitt asked Ruddy about Newsmax Inc.’s performance since the company went public.
Ruddy said the company has done extremely well since going public, with double-digit growth in first-quarter revenues.
“The company is doing tremendous,” Ruddy told Schmitt.
“Our ratings in Q1 were up 50% … our streaming channel was up 25% in May. We’ve had a double-digit growth in revenue, which has been continuing for the last three or four years.”
Ruddy noted over the last several years the company witnessed revenue growth over 300% revenue and revenues from Newsmax+ were up 50% in Q1 of this year.
He pointed out that the company also renewed cable carriage with Verizon and added Hulu+, which is the last major pay TV operator to carry Newsmax.
Ruddy said the Hulu+ addition puts the company “on par with CNN and Fox in terms of distribution.”
Schmitt then helped Ruddy clean up a reported no-no:
Schmitt mentioned critics attacked Trump’s companies and if Newsmax was seeing the same type of attacks.
Ruddy said financial media had been offering misleading or false information.
He cited a recent Seeking Alpha story that claimed that Newsmax investors, including Ruddy himself, had filed to sell 121 million company shares.
Ruddy said the claim was false, stating he was under a lock-up provision for his shares and he had no plans to sell shares beyond the lock-up.
Newsmax then unsurprisingly touted how Trump retweeted Ruddy’s A+ assessment of him. No mention, of course, of how being more pro-Trump than Fox News is Newsmax’s brand these days.
A June 11 press release touted two new Newsmax board members. one of which is former Trump labor secretary Alex Acosta. A lengthy biography for Acosta was included — but it omitted the fact that he resigned as labor secretary after his role in giving a sweetheart plea deal to notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was exposed.