By Deplorable Jaz
Before the 2020 election, many of Trump’s most ardent followers watched Fox News regularly, but after the election, when Fox seemed to be advancing the obvious lies of CNN and MSNBC, going overboard and insisting that Joe Biden had won the election fair and square with no voter fraud whatsoever, viewers left in droves.
Honestly the exodus from FNC had been brewing for some time following Chris Wallace’s dreadful performance moderating the first 2020 presidential debate between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
Who can forget his whinny reaction to Trump’s refusal to be pushed around by him that night saying the President had stepped in the beautiful, delicious cake he’d baked?
But it came to a head in early December of last year when Wallace was interviewing HHS Secretary Alex Azar about wearing masks and he seemed to almost go into full meltdown mode when Mr. Azar correctly referred to Joe Biden as Vice President Biden. “That’s President Elect sir!” Wallace snapped as Azar pretty much ignored him and continued speaking. But Chris Wallace wasn’t going to let the Secretary off that easily…
FNC’s core audience had had enough and suddenly social media blew up with conservatives suggesting they had turned their attention to a second tier news organization called Newsmax.
Newsmax was in a perfect position to scoop up FNC viewers. Its ratings soared; Fox’s fell.
In the key 25- to 54-year-old demographic which is the most desired DEMO by advertisers, “Greg Kelly Reports” on Newsmax out-rated “The Story with Martha MacCallum” on Fox.
The margin was narrow — Kelly averaged 229,000 viewers in the demo and MacCallum averaged 203,000 — but it is still a milestone in the cable news industry.
Newsmax — and Greg Kelly in particular — offered an alternative to FNC or CNN in which Biden was not being called president-elect and Trump was not yet defeated.
According to Nielsen, Fox News was still four times higher-rated than Newsmax at any given time of day. Among viewers of all ages, Fox averaged 1.36 million viewers around the clock, while Newsmax averaged 316,000 viewers. So, Newsmax really wasn’t even close to beating FNC overall.
And because of that, Newsmax really doesn’t have any clout with the cable companies who contract with the content providers like Newsmax and are carried on their platforms. However, its full-throated backing of the voter fraud theory has put it in an awkward position and most likely at odds with the woke cable companies like Comcast or Dish and Direct TV.
You’ve got to remember that cable channels rely on Cable Companies OR service providers just like websites do.
About a month ago I started noticing an editorial and philosophical shift on the issue of voter fraud. Ironically the very issue that propelled Newsmax to gain huge audience numbers following the election seemed to be of little importance and they actually seemed to be completely reversing their previous position.
They’d pretty much made a 180 across all the programs parroting the CNN position that there’s no evidence of any voter fraud and suggesting that because all states have certified their elections then there was no theft.
The first time I saw it was on Greg Kelly Live back in December, but then it became a consistent narrative with every single host on board and insisting that there was zero evidence of any vote fraud anywhere and that Joe Biden had somehow garnered more votes than any presidential candidate in the entire history of the world.
Then it came to a head when Mike Lindel was being interviewed on American Agenda with Bob Sellers. The My Pillow guy was apparently invited on to talk about the cancel culture and his recent removal from Twitter.
He begins to explain how he was posting new information he’d uncovered about exactly how the election was stolen when Bob Sellers abruptly cuts him off, screaming about there being no voter fraud at all and to stop talking about it saying, “We at Newsmax have not been able to verify those kinds of allegations. We just want to let people know there’s nothing substantive we’ve seen….” Then in a bizarre moment Sellers begins reading a prepared statement about Newsmax’s acceptance of the election results.
Because I have 45 years of media experience I can tell you it looks like it was a dictate from upper management. If you notice in the above video, when Mr. Lindell begins to attempt to explain why he felt he was removed from Twitter the host, Bob Sellers, starts reading, what I can only assume is some prepared statement.
The next day Bob Sellers tried to explain his highly unprofessional behavior. But that simply fell as flat as thin hair on a humid day….
My guess is that one of two things has happened, either someone, like say Dominion Voting Systems or Smartmatic Software has threatened to sue them over allegations the machines were rigged in favor of Joe Biden.
Dominion Voting Systems has been threatening to sue everyone but so far haven’t made good on their threats. But Smartmatic has in fact filed a $2.7 billion lawsuit against Fox News over what they call a “disinformation campaign.”
But something to keep in mind is Smartmatic is not the same as Dominion. My understanding is that Smartmatic is a software developer and did not manufacture the machines used in the 2020 election. Smartmatic seems to be only a software developer not a hardware manufacture like Dominion.
In fact according to Smartmatic’s website, Smartmatic technology was used only in Los Angeles County, for the 2020 election and the system provided to LA County does not count, tabulate or store votes.
They did not provide any hardware or software or services of any kind to the states in question, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, or Arizona during the 2020 US election, nor did they supply any other voting technology servicing those states.
Also, to clear things up, there are no ties between Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic – plain and simple. No ownership ties, no software leasing, no business at all between them.
Smartmatic has only owned one election company in the US and that was Sequoia Voting Systems. But they sold that company in 2007 to Sequoia’s management team, then three years later Sequoia was bought by Dominion Voting Systems.
So all in all I can understand Newsmax not wanting to be dragged into court but here’s the rub, 1) Mike Lindell’s information about voting irregularities involve Dominion machines not Smartmatic software and 2) as long as Newsmax makes it clear that their guests opinions are not their own, known as a “legal disclaimer of responsibility” they could have simply moved on from there and conducted a normal interview but instead the host storms off the set, seemingly in disgust over the whole thing.
But keep in mind that Newsmax is not even allowing for the discussion of the possibility of fraud in any of the other multitude of ways that seem to have occurred. Ways that don’t involve voting machines at all, such as mail in ballots, counting room irregularities and even ballot harvesting.
Maybe another possibility could be advertiser support. Are they receiving boycott threats and hate mail regarding their sponsorship of the network? Maybe pressures from their advertisers are dissuading them from going down the election fraud rabbit hole.
No, that’s not likely at all; I mean have you watched Newsmax lately? The number one advertiser on Newsmax seems to actually be Newsmax.
They’re always running an ad trying to sell stuff like tactical flashlight’s or hand crank emergency radios in order to build up a data base for direct mail onslaughts.
Other than that it’s a barrage of infomercial style advertisements for survival food products or gold and silver investment services featuring William Devein asking, “What’s in your safe?” No, those types of clients don’t really give a damn about Twitter trolls threatening to launch fake boycotts.
No, the only other possible explanation for Newsmax’s full circle on the issue of vote fraud is that management may have been threatened by the cable companies who carry their network to stop challenging the election results or face being dropped from their systems.
For lack of a better term maybe Newsmax could have been threatened with being “de-platformed”
To understand what I’m suggesting just think of the cable companies as web hosting services like Amazon and Google. Amazon & Google dropped Parler from their servers and now their completely out of business.
That could be the fate of Newsmax if they don’t comply with the demands of the cable companies. And de-platforming is even more likely to happen with a cable channel than a website because while websites can build their own servers, cable channels cannot build their own cable companies.
And while Newsmax does have a streaming service their reach is much larger with cable and satellite service providers than with online subscriptions only.
So, if that’s the case how can Fox News continue to challenge the election results on shows like Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson? Simple, Fox is too large to mess with, and despite these woke cable service providers being beholding to the socialist left in this country they still like making the green.
The bottom line is Newsmax is not big enough to push back like Fox News has been able to do. Fox is HUGE and so they can give the big bulbous, hairy knuckled middle finger to the Cable Companies if they start bitching about content on Tucker or Hannity.
So, yes, Newsmax has sold out in a way, but regardless of the reasons I can’t blame them much. After all the election is over and stolen or not Joe Biden is sitting behind the Resolute desk, pen in hand ready to scrawl his chicken scratch on whatever executive order his “handlers” slap in front of him. The damage has been done and there’s not much at this point a small news outlet can do about it.
However it would be nice if they’d grow a set and acknowledge the disenfranchisement of close to 80 million American voters and at least show some modicum of curiosity about the possibility that this election was the most fraud ridden in American history, while not stepping on too many toes anyway.
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