Since it launched in 2014, the conservative cable network Newsmax has struggled to take viewers away from Fox News, far and away the leader in the sector, even as it has occasionally experienced periods of audience growth. An average of just over 300,000 people watched the channel in prime time for the first few months of this year, compared with 3 million for Fox.
But it was at the center of the media world this week, after it went public and began trading Monday on the New York Stock Exchange.
The company’s stock price, which began at $10, shot up to more than $250 on Tuesday afternoon, leading some to label it the latest “memestock,” with a price incommensurate to its actual value.
That valuation was at odds with the financial data that Newsmax released as it prepared its public stock offering. In 2024, the network lost $72 million, which was worse than the $41 million it lost the previous year.
And by Wednesday, Newsmax’s stock price had started dropping. Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy rang the bell to open trading on Thursday morning, a day when stock prices took a sharp dive after the announcement of President Donald Trump’s global tariffs. At closing, the stock sat just above $62, still above the initial offering price but down dramatically from its brief high.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Ruddy said he is not sweating the stock’s ebbs and flows.
“I’ve been amazed about the amount of interest that we’ve gotten and certainly news we’ve generated,” he said. “And I’m very happy about the enthusiasm people have shown. But I also take the share price with a bit of a grain of salt because I’m focused on results, and the share price is going to change every day, every minute.
“I think what the high share price indicates is that the public likes Newsmax, that they value us very highly, and that they want us to grow significantly. And so that’s how I take it: as a message, and we’re continuing on that vein.”
When he spoke with The Post, Newsmax’s stock price had fallen to about $52 per share, part of a 77 percent decline on Wednesday. But because Ruddy owns 39.2 million shares of the stock, he said, “I’m technically still a billionaire.”
Newsmax’s viewers have certainly been aware of the stock offering: The network has blanketed its airwaves with advertisements to invest in the company.
Ruddy, who previously worked as a reporter for the New York Post and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, has long suggested that Newsmax was gaining ground on Fox News — a claim belied by a viewership comparison, though it has crept closer to CNN. Ruddy, seen as an associate of the president, posted a photo on X last week of Trump calling him.
I received a nice call from Pres. Trump today from Oval Office (note name on cell).We talked Greg Kelly interview tonight, latest McLaughlin poll and Newsmax’s IPO next week!
I shared with Potus my new saying: ‘A rising Trump lifts all boats!” pic.twitter.com/fAu3G67lJk
— Christopher Ruddy (@ChrisRuddyNMX) March 25, 2025
Newsmax, which raised $75 million in an initial public offering, has said it wants to use the money to invest in its traditional television channel but also its streaming channel, Newsmax2, and its subscription service Newsmax+, which costs $4.99 per month.
Over the past few years, Newsmax has experienced periods of audience growth, though they have not generally been sustained. In late 2020, the network drew viewers who had grown disillusioned with Fox over its coverage of the election. Newsmax also trumpeted gains in viewership after Fox fired its biggest star at the time, Tucker Carlson, in April 2023. The network has hired several former Fox personalities for its shows, making it something of a landing spot for those departing the network.
“I think Fox has proven there’s a very, very significant market on the center and center-right in the United States. And it’s been largely uncontested until Newsmax came along,” Ruddy said. “We’re not really looking at what Fox does or doesn’t do. I think Fox has been at a high point for some time, and I think everybody seems to think that that dominance will not continue forever.” (Fox News’s average viewership for the first few months of 2025 was the largest in cable news history.)
Like Fox, Newsmax was sued by two voting-machine companies, Smartmatic and Dominion, over its coverage of the 2020 election. Newsmax settled Smartmatic’s lawsuit for $40 million but is still in litigation with Dominion, with a trial expected to start in Delaware this month. Ruddy declined to comment about whether a settlement is being discussed with Dominion, which is seeking $1.6 billion.
“We believe we’ll prevail,” Ruddy said. “We believe we have a very strong case.”
While some have suggested that Newsmax’s public offering was a way to build up a war chest to settle the Dominion case, Ruddy said there has “never” been a connection, adding, “We believe we would have been able to fund these lawsuits without any IPO offering.”
A previous version of this article mischaracterized Newsmax’s monetary loss in 2024. It was worse than the previous year, not an improvement.
