SENATE REPUBLICANS CONTINUE TO POSTURE OVER DIRECTV/NEWSMAX KERFLUFFLE

Don’t be surprised if the executives of AT&T and DirecTV are summoned to Congressional hearings in the near future to explain their decision to drop Newsmax (and OAN, in a blast from the past).

GOP Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Mike Lee (Utah) and Tom Cotton (Ark.) signed on to a letter to DirecTV “demanding” answers to the dropping of the two channels.

Gentlemen, the answers.

Again.

DirecTV has 13 million subscribers.

Newsmax averages fewer than 150,000 total daily viewers last year.

OAN had a fraction of that

For comparison, a daily average of 1.4 million people watched Fox News, 733,000 watched MSNBC and 568,000 watched CNN.

OAN was being underwritten by AT&T before it spun off DirecTV – the main source of revenue that was keeping it afloat.

Newsmax, which is offered free on other platforms and had been free on DirecTV suddenly wanted retrans fees that, according to CNN, in the neighborhood of eleven figures.

That’s a lot of change for a channel that nobody watches.

But Newsmax is also a platform for politicians of a certain stripe – a safe space where no tough questions will be asked that haven’t already been vetted.

And so, we have all the concern coming from Congress.

We wonder when they will go after YouTube for dumping Major League baseball over the very same issue.

And by the way, anyone wonder why FOX News is evidently ignoring this “vicious attack” on free speech?