Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy, before ringing the bell opening the New York Stock Exchange Thursday, said that while Newsmax's public offering has made national and international headlines, his main concern is about the growth of the company.
"As a CEO, you know, I don't really worry about the stock price because my job is to worry about the growth of the company," Ruddy told Newsmax correspondent Christina Thompson from the floor of the stock exchange. "We've done a tremendous job."
Ruddy pointed out that even though "everybody said we'd never go anywhere," the Newsmax television network is "number four in cable news. We're number seven in all of cable. We reach 40 million people. Reuters says that we're one of the top 12 media, so I think things are going to go really well."
He pointed out that The Financial Times praised Newsmax's advances in an "incredible article" that said "you know Newsmax, Chris Ruddy is right. There's a huge market in what they're doing. They've got huge potential. They're stacking up very well against Fox News."
He added that there are some negative stories being posted by rival networks such as CNN and CNBC, but "we're beating them a lot of times in direct competition, so of course they don't like us."
Newsmax, he added, has "beaten Fox in the past couple of years in the rate of growth that we've had," and when Newsmax 2, the company's streaming channel, is added in, "our audience is much larger than CNN."
Much of the growth, Ruddy said, came because people are looking at Newsmax and seeing what they want with fair coverage.
"Eighty, 90% of the media had negative press coverage of President Trump and 80% positive of Kamala Harris," said Ruddy, which caused viewers to decide that "There's something wrong."
"We need Newsmax, not just Fox,'" he said. Viewers have decided that "we need more media that gives alternative and better viewpoints that represent the values of the American people."
Thompson said that she was being told by people at the stock exchange how much they enjoy Newsmax, and Ruddy said that does not surprise him.
"It doesn't surprise me because all over the place people talk about Newsmax and people watching us are all telling their friends and family to tune in," said Ruddy.
"I'll meet a lot of people," he added. "They say 'you won't believe it. My mom watches Newsmax like 24 hours a day'... once they start watching, they realize this is different and it's better than Fox. It represents the type of values that we have when reporting on the news stories that we care about."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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