If you follow the media world at all, there is a good chance Newsmax’s initial public offering has caught your attention. How could it not?
The conservative news outlet made its Wall Street debut on Monday morning, and, over the course of the next two days, saw its share price dart from $10 to $233. Newsmax’s remarkable surge helped push the profitless company’s valuation north of $20 billion — making it more valuable in investors’ eyes than industry titans like The New York Times and News Corp. by Tuesday afternoon. But the ride took a roller-coaster plunge on Wednesday, with shares of the Boca Raton, Florida-based company plummeting 77% to $52.52 per share, as many investors bailed with their gains.
Still, even after the whiplash-inducing swings, Newsmax shares are worth more than five times where shares were initially priced at — and that has not gone unnoticed.
Now, the question becomes whether Newsmax’s public offering could jumpstart a sluggish IPO market for the technology, media and telecom (TMT) sector.
“The IPO market has been very dry the past few years,” said Wedbush Securities Managing Director Dan Ives. “If you are a digital media player, you feel a lot better after this deal.”
He added: “It’s important to have stocks like this open out of the gates strong. It’s a shot in the arm for the IPO market.”
Ives did not go as far as to say he expects this to lead to a wave of new media IPOs, though. He said that while there is a strong appetite for digital and political content, he echoed that not every company resonates with its fanbase the same way Newsmax does.
The media and entertainment industries have never been super fertile ground for IPOs over the years, preferring M&A as the deal of choice. IPOs like Endeavor Group Holdings in 2021 or even DreamWorks back in 2004 are not common. But with the rise of technology intersecting with media and entertainment, investors are always scouting for the next big breakthrough offering from an upstart.
For now, most have been focused on sports and entertainment ticket reseller StubHub, which filed its IPO paperwork March 21.
Still, the TMT IPO market, even after factoring in Newsmax’s soaring debut on the final day of the quarter, was down 6% compared to first quarter of 2024.
The TMT IPO market in the U.S. brought in $1.6 billion in the first quarter, down from $1.7 billion last year, according to data from Dealogic, a financial markets platform. While the first quarter this year is better than the $1.2 billion in TMT deals combined across the first three months of 2022 and 2023, it is well short of the $4 billion-plus in IPOs in the first quarters of 2018 and 2019.
The anomaly is when the TMT IPO market surged in first quarter of 2021, following a downturn during the pandemic, when the deal value hit $22 billion in first quarter deals.
The current IPO market, in short, is nowhere close to its recent heights.
Data via Dealogic
Peter Horan, founder of Horan Media Advisors, told TheWrap he views Newsmax’s success as more of a “one-off” than a harbinger of things to come for the media world. That is because Newsmax is benefiting from something that few media companies have: a rabid fanbase. Supporters of President Donald Trump are grabbing shares, Horan said, as a way to financially support the MAGA-friendly outlet.
“Very few media companies have readers and viewers with that level of passion,” Horan said. “So that makes Newsmax almost like a meme stock.”
Newsmax’s hot start on Wall Street has also coincided with a strong start to the year for right-leaning outlets, as fans of President Trump are clearly more interested in watching the news since he won his second election. Fox News just posted the best quarterly ratings in cable history in the first quarter. And Newsmax enjoyed a big start to 2025 as well, with the channel averaging 238,000 viewers in the first quarter — up 25% year-over-year, according to Nielsen Research Data. Still that has not resulted in profits. The company posted a net loss of $72.2 million last year.
Newsmax is home to former Fox News host Greta Van Susteren, who hosts her show weekdays at 6 p.m. ET, as well as anchors Rob Schmitt and Rob Finnerty. Schmitt’s weeknight show averaged 520,000 viewers in February, making it Newsmax’s top-rated show for the month. He recently interviewed Elon Musk at CPAC.
Former Fox News host Greta Van Susteren (right) has been a Newsmax anchor since 2022. (Getty Images)
Horan likened Newsmax’s rapid movements to the ones Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of the president’s Truth Social app, had last year. Trump Media enjoyed a strong IPO last March, quickly jumping 16%, and later saw its stock price triple in the month leading up to the 2024 election to more than $45 per share. Shares of Trump Media — which trade under the president’s DJT initials on the Nasdaq exchange — have cooled considerably since then, closing Wednesday at $18.76 per share.
“This is sort of like the BS around Trump Media. You saw the same kind of wild gyrations there,” Horan said. “The MAGA fanboys jumped on the bandwagon and said, ‘Yes, this is it.’ Then, when the results [of the election] came in, the enthusiasm cooled an awful lot.”
Whether Newsmax’s early success is fleeting or here to stay, Wedbush Securities’ Ives added “everyone [on Wall Street] has taken notice” of its big debut.
Still, Horan pointed to other speed bumps media companies are facing when deciding to go public, including a “stagnating” advertising market. Magna, IPG’s ad-focused media intelligence unit, forecasted traditional media companies like TV and radio channels will see a 1% drop in annual sales this year to $103 billion.
Another challenge to this point has been the uncertain nature of President Trump’s tariff plan, which makes it difficult for companies to plan long-term. Horan said some of that haziness should alleviate following the president’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcements Wednesday afternoon.
“It’s really kind of a challenged environment, so I don’t think a lot of media companies feel like they can consistently put up numbers that make it worth going pubic,” Horan added.
The companies that will most likely explore going public post-Newsmax, both Horan and Ives said, are not traditional media companies. Instead, it is better to keep an eye on social influencers like MrBeast, who has built a massive business based on his 378 million YouTube subscribers. Media stars with a devoted following are the best bets to replicate Newsmax’s initial success.
One executive for a streaming-focused media company told TheWrap that Newsmax’s debut has “at minimum, made us think about going public sooner rather than later,” although no IPO plans are imminent. For any company ready to make that leap, they will want to consider not only the health of their business, but whether or not they have a passionate fanbase that will eagerly gobble up shares once they are available — like Newsmax’s did.
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