Newsmax TV, a small, right-wing cable network that has pandered to Donald Trump and his supporters’ false claims of a “rigged” race since Election Day, may soon be the potential Fox News competitor that Trump allies have discussed mounting for some time. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that Hicks Equity Partners, a private-equity firm with ties to a co-chair of the Republican National Committee, “has held talks in recent months about acquiring and investing in Newsmax,” a purchase that was purportedly pitched to investors as “part of a larger plan to assemble a network of channels aimed at conservatives.” Chris Ruddy, Newsmax Media’s CEO and a friend of Trump’s, told the Journal that the channel “never had any deal with the Hicks group” and has, in recent years, spoken to various parties interested in acquiring or investing in Newsmax.

In an interview with Variety later on Sunday, Ruddy said “we are not actively selling” the company but noted “investors, investment banks, and strategic players” have pursued Newsmax in the recent past. “We listen to them, but our main focus is continuing: We would like to overtake Fox News in the next 12 months, and I think it’s do-able,” he told the outlet. Ruddy vowed “Newsmax would never become ‘Trump TV’” yet said the channel “would be open to talk to [Trump] about a weekly show.” (According to Nielsen Media Research, Fox News has a long-running streak as the top-rated cable news network.) 

And based on the escalating feud between the president and Fox News, interest in that rival effort—particularly from Trump himself, who has been rage-tweeting at the network—is intensifying. Even as Fox News and Fox Business air hours on hours of pro-Trump programming every day, including content fueling election denial, my colleague Caleb Ecarma noted last week how Trump and his MAGA faithful are still furious that the network called the race for President-elect Joe Biden. That ire, Rolling Stone reported, was made clear during this weekend’s so-called “Million MAGA March" in Washington, D.C. 

In the wake of his grievances with Fox, Trump has turned to promoting even more sycophantic outlets like Newsmax and One America News Networks, which Hicks has also been looking into as a path to challenging Fox’s hold on the conservative media market. The firm’s efforts to acquire OANN has apparently cooled since the bid was first reported earlier this year, though “Hicks Equity still considers it a compelling target,” according to the Journal.

In the aftermath of the election, Newsmax’s willingness to promote Trump’s post-election lies about widespread voter fraud and tell his supporters what they want to hear has, in terms of ratings, served them well. The network—which continues to falsely claim that Trump won the 2020 election–“has gone from about 100,000 viewers a day on a good day to about one million viewers per night” for Greg Kelly’s show, the highest-rated host on Newsmax, according to CNN. “Fox has never seen competition like this," CNN's Brian Stelter said on Reliable Sources Sunday. "There is demand for a fictional universe,” Stelter noted, “an entire constellation of websites and talk shows that are in denial just like Trump” while “reliable news sources are mostly moving on to cover President-elect Biden.”

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