direcTV pulled the plug on conservative news channel Newsmax on Wednesday despite pleas from House Republicans who said the move would affect its ability to reach voters.
The TV provider said the decision fell to Newsmax to seek rate increases, which “would have resulted in significantly higher costs that we would have to pass on to our broad customer base,” Justin Baragona of the Daily Beast reported.
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Baragona shared that the message on the busy DirecTV Newsmax channel just yesterday read, “DIRECTV STREAM customers can continue to watch Newsmax programming for free by downloading the app through their device’s app store,” with a link included to access more information.
Freshman Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX) said this week that the TV provider’s inability to reach a deal with Newsmax on cable fees signaled “a political decision to censor conservative media, which is a red flag for the First Amendment.”
Hunt sent a letter obtained exclusively by the Washington Examiner to DirecTV and its owners, AT&T and TPG Capital, co-signed by 41 other Republican lawmakers ahead of the company’s “deplatforming” of Newsmax.
“I am deeply troubled by DirecTV’s decision to remove Newsmax from its channel lineup,” Hunt said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “Newsmax’s deplatforming is the latest development in the left’s ongoing campaign to remove voices they disagree with from the public sphere. . This decision by DirecTV and TPG Capital will cut tens of millions of ‘viewers who trust Newsmax for their news and information.’
Hunt said millions of people turn to Newsmax as a reliable source of information and people need access to a free and fair press. “I’m sure DirecTV will claim that removing Newsmax from its channel lineup was a purely business decision, but that’s hard to accept when liberal news outlets like Vice Media are still on the air. Vice is a failure of rating for DirecTV. however, they continue to leverage their relationship with DirecTV,” Hunt added.
DirecTV told the Washington Examiner that it responded to the letter and is working to comply with the lawmakers’ requests.
“We are delivering Newsmax to our national base of satellite and IPTV customers today at no cost to the programmer or our customers, finally giving Newsmax the ability to generate significant advertising revenue at no cost,” a DirecTV spokesperson said in a statement. The same programming that Newsmax offers today is now available at no cost to 100% of US households, including our customers, through NewsmaxTV.com, YouTube.com and on various streaming platforms such as Amazon Fire TV, Roku and Google Play.”
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Newsmax did not respond to a request for comment. DirecTV said it plans to fill the available channel with new content.
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