Christopher Ruddy - Newsmax's Next Frontier: IPO and the Conservative Media Landscap

Hearts of Oak Podcast

Shownotes and Transcript⁨

In this episode of Hearts of Oak Podcast, we sit down with Christopher Ruddy, the CEO of Newsmax, as he delves into the inception and growth of his media empire, culminating in the announcement of Newsmax's upcoming IPO. Christopher shares his journey from covering the Clinton White House to founding Newsmax with a vision to counter the mainstream media's perceived bias. He discusses the challenges of maintaining a conservative voice in media, the surge in Newsmax's popularity during the 2020 election, and the strategic move towards an IPO. Listeners will gain insights into how they can invest in Newsmax's future, as Chris outlines the IPO process and its significance in broadening the platform's reach. This episode not only explores Newsmax's past and present but also looks forward to its role in shaping a more balanced media landscape.

Invest in Newsmax invest.newsmax.com

Christopher Ruddy, is CEO of Newsmax Media, Inc., the parent company of NEWSMAX, America’s fastest-growing cable news channel. He is a noted journalist and entrepreneur, is CEO and president of Newsmax Media Inc., one of the nation's leading news media companies.
In 1998, Ruddy founded Newsmax, a multimedia publishing company that publishes online and offline content in the fields of news, politics, health and finance. Newsmax.com ranks consistently as one of the country's most trafficked news Web sites.
As a journalist, Ruddy previously worked at the New York Post and the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.
A Newsweek cover story named him as one of America's top 20 most influential news media personalities. He also studied as a Media Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University.
Ruddy sits on the Board of Directors of the Financial Publishers Association, the industry organization representing investment publications that reach 25 million Americans monthly.
He holds a B.A. summa cum laude in history from St. John's University in New York and a master's in Public Policy from the London School of Economics.

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WEBSITES newsmax.com

Interview recorded 12.9.24

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*Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast.

Check out his art theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com and follow him on 𝕏 x.com/TheBoschFawstin

Transcript

Hearts of Oak:

And I'm delighted to have Christopher Ruddy with us, CEO of Newsmax. Christopher, thank you so much for your time today.

Christopher Ruddy:

Well, very nice to be on with you. Very excited, Peter, to do the show. And I know you're developing an international following, so it'll be fun to see the impacts we have. Maybe Newsmax will be well beyond the borders of the United States when we're done.

Well, it is. And I've enjoyed Newsmax on Roku in the UK. On the app, online, on Freeview. It's available on terrestrial TV in the UK. So it is everywhere, and I've thoroughly enjoyed it. But you started Newsmax 25 years ago. Maybe let us know, before we touch on the IPO, which is coming up in months, let us know what was behind that, your idea of launching a new media venture. What was your vision for it?

Well, it goes back a little bit of ways. 25 years ago, you know, I was covering the Clinton White House at the time in the 90s, and I saw them that the media was pretty one-sided. I remember there was a study of the White House press corps in the 90s that showed that 89% of the White House press corps had voted for Bill Clinton. I mean, how do these people claim that they're balanced or they talk about diversity, but they're not for diversity of opinion? And remember, Clinton only got in the 92 election about 42%, I think, of the vote. He didn't get a majority because it was – Ross Perot was in the race. So, I mean, they're so lopsided it wasn't funny. As bad as it was then, Peter, it's worse today because not only are people – are they leaning left like they were in the 90s. Now they're polarized and weaponized. I've been very disappointed. We subscribe to the Associated Press. I've been very disappointed how just weaponized and woke that organization has become. and, I'm sorry, if you cross the border of the United States illegally, it's a crime, and you're an illegal alien into the United States. To say that Newsmax is a racist organization, because we use that term, I just think it's unbelievable.

That said, I believe that illegal aliens should be treated with dignity and that we should – they are human beings. And they have certain rights that the Constitution provides of anybody that's in the country, whether they're a citizen or not. But I think you've got to be honest with the language you use. Anyway, that's just like a small portion of why I sort of – I'm a contrarian when it comes to the mainstream media.

Newsmax has taken the view we should give public both sides and the other side of the story. And we have done that. And I think it's been a big success for us digitally and now television.

Vision no certainly and I mean it started just with a few tens of thousands of dollars that probably couldn't even buy you an advert now on most tv channels and you've grown Newsmax from those humble beginnings, to taking it to an IPO through launching on TV in 2014, I mean it has been quite a ride. What has that been like for you yourself whenever you look back at that rise?

Well, I don't do a lot of looking back. I'm so busy dealing with the issues that I face today. And, you know, it's not really that easy running a conservative media operation in the United States. There's a lot of constant flack and attacks and efforts against us. Despite all of that, we've continued to rise. And what I think gratifying, if you look back on what the current situation is, I feel like the American people really do support us, that we've had tremendous amount of support and you know, Reuters came out with a study. Reuters is not like conservative, they did a study in June that found that there are 12 top news brands in the United States and Newsmax was one of those 12. Now I didn't ask to be on the list, they just did their survey, they were honest and you know I have to tell you I almost fell off my seat because we were the only ones that was like, not backed by a billion dollar corporation, it was ABC, MBC, Fox was on it, but we were the only real conservative leaning one on the channel. Fox you know is changing so I thought it was like areal affirmation that the American public's waking up and we're breaking through. We now have a cable channel that's number four in the United States but we're really close to overtaking CNN, we would have done it had we been on an equal basis and the number of cable homes. So that's happening. We were number seven in July for all of cable. So there's a couple of hundred cable channels. And again, this was not, you know, I come from a middle-class, humble beginnings. My dad was a New York police lieutenant. I grew up, and you mentioned I started with a $25,000 investment. But over time, people have supported us, the American people. They're voting with their remote controls and their apps. And downloads, and it's actually wonderful and gratifying to see.

I mean, for me, it was 2020, that election.

Newsmax was put on my radar, and I think you took up the baton from Fox News that had got a bit of Trump Derangement Syndrome, and you stuck with Trump. But you seem to have taken that baton for conservatives, certainly in the TV space and wider, and that is a responsibility to take, isn't it?

Yeah. No, I mean, Fox has been good for a long time. I actually have a very high opinion of Rupert Murdoch. I think the guy is an American hero, should have won the American Medal of Freedom. If Trump gave the American Medal of Freedom to one man, it should have been Rupert Murdoch because, and I have no benefit saying it, he's a competitor now. But I did work for him in the 90s and I have a tremendous amount of respect. What he's done in Britain, in the United States and think aboutall of these billionaires. We hear a lot of them complain about the American media and the woke left, but it took an Australian who became an American to actually do something about it and I think Fox News was a game changer. And it was for a long time. I think his son, Lachlan, is a good conservative from what I can see. But I also think he's not so much caught into the whole desire to make America great and all of that other stuff and maybe likes the entertainment part of the business more. I mean, he's a pretty savvy business guy. He launched the major real estate thing in Australia that was huge for his companies. So, but, I think Fox is changing. I think that's the best way to put it. People are leaving and they're going to Newsmax and that's good for us and it's good for competition.

No, I remember being in a hotel room in the States and watching, turning on to Fox and they had an LGBT advert or a pride festival. And I thought, wow, it has changed. It's no longer for their base. And Newsmax certainly has picked it up. But you must be in a constant battle between entities like the Soros Foundation that want to see you gone because you seem to be the mouthpiece for conservative thinking and the weaponization of the institutions in the States. And you've managed to walk that, I'm sure it's been a very difficult line for you to walk, that regulation and attacks. And yet, despite that, you've grown and grown year by year.

I think it's important work, and it's nice to think somebody else might do it, but they're not, so we're doing it. And if Fox goes, and it does seem like it will eventually go, right, when Rupert passes, he's 93, there's a battle in courts going on. But I'm not so sure, no matter what happens there, that it's going to really be consistent to his vision, initial vision. And Newsmax is really the only thing left standing now. So through the years, I've had offers for people to buy Newsmax and we've turned them down or did not pursue them. And I think it's important that we keep doing it. It's one of the reasons we decided to go public because we felt like we could have remained a private company. We've been successful. And we think that by joining with hundreds of thousands of investors as we go public, if we're approved, that we will have an army of supporters that will help push us over CNN and to market dominance. And we saw the success of President Trump's, Trump Media, which we think indicates there's a significant demand for conservative media out there. So we announced it, and we've gotten a tremendous response to it.

So what does that, because some of the viewers, I know our viewership is half and half U.S, U.K and many of them will be watching thinking, actually I'd like to play a part, I've enjoyed, I benefited from watching Newsmax. I mean how do they play a part in this IPO to actually support Newsmax, to make sure you go to the next level?

Well, we have a website that we created, and a lot of it's being done online with this very innovative investment bank that's been around for over a decade. And the website is NewsmaxInvest.com, which is one word, NewsmaxInvest.com. And on it, we talk about not only the plan, we just filed last week to go public with the SEC. So there is an approval process. But we are allowed under this particular offering to seek early share investments if people want preferred shares. They can buy shares. They can even do it with a credit card. And by the way, if they fit the eligibility standards, whether they're in the US or in England or anywhere in the world, they investors can buy shares. The eligibility standards are based on income and net worth and they're determined not by us, but by the SEC for this preferred share offering, but basically we're selling shares where you can get a seven percent dividend until we go public and then you get the shares are valued at 25 % discount to the IPO price. So you're basically locking in a potential profit. And we think it's a great deal. And certainly, we're seeking to raise $150 million. So far, we've raised about half of that amount, which is tremendous. And we're expecting to close pretty soon because we just have so many, over 45,000 investors have said they plan on investing in either this or the IPO. So we're really excited about the potential there.

And so it's important to read all the material in the memorandum. You go to Newsmaxinvest.com and there's, I think, a lot of information. But I think what's really going to happen is the way this regulation is organized, it's an expedited IPO process under Regulation A. You can only raise 75 million when you go public which is a small amount, but by doing the early raise now we're essentially raising the shares that will be in the marketplace. These shares will be registered to be trading soon after the IPO happened, so I think the shareholders will do pretty well, I can't guarantee it and obviously you should talk to your investment advisor about it.

Well, all those links will be in the description for people to click on it and look at that and take part if you so wish.

And the response to that call for investment shows the surge of conservative media. People are hungry for truth. They're hungry for something different from the established media. And Newsmax seems to bridge that alternative media, which you started at, moving into TV. And you seem to have crossed over that from alternative to established. And sometimes I guess that must be a hard path to follow, keeping all those from being hugely successful from 2014 and TV.

Well, I think we just, you know, we follow sort of whether you say alternative or establishment. We just do it the old-fashioned way. We just report the news. And, you know, people say, oh, it's nice to say that. But, you know, like I have people on that are liberal, all day long. And then we have people that are very critical of Trump. We have people on that are Republicans that are critical of Trump. John Bolton comes on Newsmax all the time. And we're considered very supportive of Trump. I think it largely comes because we actually cover him. And President Trump has spoken very highly of us, says it's his favorite network and he's tuning in and all that's great. But at the end of the day, we're going to still put criticisms on because people should be informed of both sides. And I don't think ultimately he has a problem with that, where Fox was basically freezing him out for a long period of time, wouldn't put him on, wouldn't cover his events. And I think that's wrong. You know, when the primary happened, we didn't say, and I've known Donald Trump for 25 years. I'm a friend of his, but I didn't say, you know what, we're supporting him over the other candidates. We had DeSantis on all the time, Nikki Haley, et cetera.

And we let people decide. And I think Fox is like, well, we don't want Trump. We're going to back DeSantis. And then he wasn't working. And then they were going to back Nikki. And then she wasn't working. And they did this in 2016, where they opposed Trump in every candidate. To me, I think this is just unbelievable. You wouldn't think CNN and MSNBC said in the 2020 election, And you know, we're going to endorse Biden. We're going to give him favorable coverage because we want him. I think it would have been a revolt to the Democratic Party and they would have lost a lot of credibility, but Fox, I think it comes from, you know, frankly, Rupert Murdoch came where he was a major, the major dominant figure in media in Australia and then certainly in England for a long period and he is a king made gurney was more used to that. I think in the U.S market it really doesn't work and I don't think it's a good business approach and so I let the people decide.

Oh, well, I'm glad that I can enjoy Newsmax here in the UK and get that perspective. So Christopher Ruddy, thank you so much for giving us your time and talking about the upcoming IPO and letting us know how the viewers and listeners can be a part of that. 60 days to go to the election, it's going to be a wild ride. So thank you so much for your time today.

Well, thank you. And my only two things, one is check out newsmaxinvest.com if you're interested in the IPO or the planned IPO or buying shares now and number two there's a rumor you're going to Chicago next week and I want you to know that,

if you need to buy body armor, we could recommend some places, extra security?

I’m a Catholic so maybe we could get some novena's said for you.

I mean, God love what you are doing, it's so important and keep up your good work Peter.