It’s time, once more, to shrink your violins down to the quantum level, because conservatives are complaining about being persecuted. Again.
Yes, the same characters who have a virtual stranglehold on the talk radio space, control the top-rated cable news channel in the U.S., and for years have been transforming trusted local TV stations into propaganda outlets through the avowedly conservative Sinclair Broadcasting Co. are big mad because DirecTV won’t pay cable outlet Newsmax for its incisive interviews with the pair of boozy, ennui-besotted homunculi who now control Rudy Giuliani’s limbs and facial expressions, respectively.
It’s simply an outrage. Maybe Elon Musk will tweet about it from the multibillion-dollar social media platform he now owns and runs like an alt-right raccoon with his head stuck in a Pringles can.
DirecTV recently announced it was dropping Newsmax, but not because of its endless stream of lies. Instead, the AT&T subsidiary broke ties because the cable outlet—which is being sued by Dominion Voting Systems over the network’s 2020 election, erm, exaggerations—wanted to be paid for its expertly crafted and professionally curated lies.
"On multiple occasions, we made it clear to Newsmax that we wanted to continue to offer the network, but ultimately Newsmax's demands for rate increases would have led to significantly higher costs that we would have to pass on to our broad customer base," DirecTV said in a statement provided to Ars Technica.
The carriage deal expired at midnight last night. The "rate increase" demanded by Newsmax was actually from a base of $0 because DirecTV didn't have to pay Newsmax to carry the network under their now-expired deal, a DirecTV spokesperson told Ars. DirecTV says it was one of the first pay-TV providers to carry Newsmax starting in 2014.
While DirecTV described it as a financial decision, Newsmax accused DirecTV of discrimination and censorship. "This is a blatant act of political discrimination and censorship against Newsmax," Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy said in an article on the Newsmax website titled, "AT&T's DirecTV Cancels Newsmax in Censorship Move."
Oh, noes! God forbid one of this country’s numerous pro-Trump and pro-sedition media outlets be denied its divine right to monetize its contributions to the slow, methodical destruction of our democracy.
Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress and elsewhere are making a big stink. And no, they’re not smearing feces on the walls of their offices. That would be gauche. And so 2021.
MSNBC’s Ja’han Jones:
GOP lawmakers are up in arms that DirecTV might pull the plug on a major source of right-wing disinformation, and they’re trying to throw their weight around to stop it. In a letter late last week, more than 40 Republicans decried the possibility that DirecTV would no longer offer Newsmax — the archconservative, Trump-loving network known for spreading lies.
“It has recently been revealed that Congressional Democrats and the White House coordinated closely with private companies to de-platform, de-monetize, or otherwise limit the reach of viewpoints they oppose and classify them as ‘misinformation,’” the House Republicans wrote. “As members of the House Republican Conference, we are deeply concerned about this un-democratic assault on free speech.”
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Yet again, the GOP proves the hollowness of its claim to be the party of free enterprise. But from a business perspective, it seems like one reason for DirecTV discontinuing its relationship with Newsmax — as it did with the right-wing One America News Network last April — is the potential legal liability.
Legal liability would seem like a good reason to part ways, though DirecTV certainly isn’t citing it as part of its rationale.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump—who somehow manages to lie more frequently than he exhales—tore into DirecTV on his (very) public toilet, Truth Social.
For the nontweeters (nonTruthers?), Ron Filipkowski notes that “He only rolls out the 100% caps on special occasions” over a screenshot of Trump’s “Truth” rant.
“CANCEL CNN & MSDNC (MSNBC). FAKE NEWS SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO ‘STINK UP’ OUR AIRWAVES! DIRECTV, WHICH IS DOING REALLY BADLY, & AT&T, WHICH IS DOING EVEN WORSE, SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF THEMSELVES FOR DROPPING NEWSMAX AND OAN. WE SHOULD DROP THEM!!!”
Okay, sure. But as DirecTV noted, it’s still carrying Fox News, whose top-rated primetime host regularly cheerleads for Vladimir Putin and COVID-19, while somehow sparing no vitriol for the brown M&M.
In response to the GOP lawmakers’ performative blather, DirecTV stated, “Newsmax's average household audience is only 101,000 households [nationwide], representing less than 0.1% of total TV households. That is 92% lower than Fox News. If Newsmax ceases to authorize our carriage of their channel, our customers will still have access to their clearly preferred conservative news channel, Fox News, which has more viewers than MSNBC, CNN and Newsmax combined."
In other words, Newsmax has fewer viewers than Green Bay, Wisconsin, has residents. You could almost fit them all in Lambeau Field—and probably would, if Greg Gutfeld ever did stand-up there.
And it’s not like DirecTV is making a righteous stand for democracy by deplatforming a network that regularly trafficked in election disinformation. Quite the opposite.
“We are not trying to de-platform Newsmax,” wrote DirecTV in its letter to congressional Republicans. “To the contrary, we want to continue our carriage of Newsmax on the same terms as at present, and we have made that clear to Newsmax. We have been negotiating with Newsmax for months and, faced with an expiration of our current agreement, initiated a short-term extension to allow the parties additional time to come to an agreement. We continue to have discussions with Newsmax and are working in good faith to get to an agreement that we consider to be in the best interests of DIRECTV subscribers.”
And DirecTV is also showing—through its actions, and political donations—that it holds no grudge or animus toward conservatives.
RELATED: Corporations that promised to suspend donations to 2020 election deniers show they can't be trusted
The Daily Beast reports that DirecTV is the new home for one of the all-time worst: Bill O’fucking Reilly.
Amid cries from Republicans that DirecTV is censoring conservative media by “de-platforming” Newsmax, the satellite provider announced on Thursday that it has added another fledgling right-wing network to its roster: The First, whose hosts include disgraced Fox News star Bill O’Reilly.
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According to DirecTV, their multi-year deal with The First—which launched in late 2019 as a digital network available on over-the-top (OTT) platforms—will not feature any “extra fees” and will allow the conservative outlet to “remain a free channel” available to DirecTV customers. The First will continue to retain a free stream on its website and other services. (This appears to be similar to the deal Newsmax rejected this month.)
Among the programs featured on The First are The Dana Show, hosted by former NRA flack and firebrand Dana Loesch; No Spin News, the podcast hosted by O’Reilly after his Fox News ouster; a primetime show, titled The Liz Wheeler Show, hosted by ex-OAN anchor Liz Wheeler; and a program helmed by right-wing radio host Jesse Kelly.
See? DirecTV is so committed to “fairness” it’s gonna give Bill O’Reilly another chance to weird out young female employees with his odd, concupiscent references to chickpeas.
Speaking of being weirded out, Rep. Lauren Boebert is predicting DirecTV’s latest business decision will be the death knell for its parent company, AT&T, which—let’s see—has been in business in some form for, uh, 138 years, give or take.
(Partial) transcript!
BOEBERT: “I’m absolutely disgusted at DirecTV, who’s owned by AT&T, and what they’ve done to join the woke mob and censor conservative speech. But I do hope that the companies that do back conservatives and are there for them … are benefiting from this, because there is going to be a mass exodus from AT&T.”
Okay, Lauren. Because the portion of the public that managed to memory-hole a bonafide insurrection against the legitimate government of the United States will hold onto this outrage until the heat death of the universe. Or until Hasbro forces G.I. Joe to get his COVID shot—whichever comes first.
Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.