In response to John Fund’s piece about the ongoing dispute between Newsmax and DirecTV, DirecTV sent the following statement from Michael Hartman, general counsel and chief external affairs officer:

National Review’s February 19 article entitled “Is Newsmax the Latest Victim of a Liberal Squeeze Play?” unfortunately parrots the falsehoods that Newsmax has spread to strongarm its way into a business agreement with DIRECTV.

Over the past month, Newsmax turned a common business dispute over carriage rights into a political circus. In fact, while the contract was active and we were negotiating, Newsmax chose to first take the fight to Washington, D.C. They have also heavily relied on their contributor network for signatures in a quid pro quo for airtime. This crony-capitalistic play assumed that with enough pressure decrying terms like “censorship” and “deplatforming,” DIRECTV would cave to their outrageous financial demands.

Unfortunately for Newsmax, they’ve seen their argument disintegrate in Washington, D.C., and among its viewers. What Newsmax failed to recognize is what DIRECTV has said all along. We operate in a free market and determine the programing we deliver based on economics. Any attack that our business dispute is based on politics or ideology is entirely false.

While we initiated an extension with Newsmax ahead of the deadline, at expiration Newsmax had the right under copyright law to block DIRECTV from transmitting its network. However, we’ve remained at the negotiating table, even while Newsmax was holding its programming hostage and egging their viewers on to bombard us on a false premise. Why? Because, despite their narrative, we continue to offer multiple perspectives to our broad base of customers seeking diversified programming.

A news organization must always demonstrate journalistic integrity. So, what we will not tolerate — as we have made explicitly clear to Newsmax and those who are writing or campaigning on their behalf — is the disparagement of our company, our reputation, or our employees through false accusations. Chief among these include:

• DIRECTV is censoring conservatives. DIRECTV gave Newsmax their start in 2014. At expiration Newsmax was reaching 100 percent of DIRECTV and U-verse customers at no cost while benefiting handsomely from significant advertising revenue. Upon Newsmax’s expiration, we gave a new conservative news network distribution, the First, which features popular conservative voices like Bill O’Reilly, Dana Loesch, and others. In the past several weeks, it has experienced significant gains in viewership through DIRECTV and its own free streaming channel. The First is just one of the five balanced U.S. news networks we offer.
• DIRECTV pays “22 liberal news networks.” Prior to expiration, Newsmax artificially doubled its own claim that DIRECTV provides “11 liberal news networks,” now up to “22 liberal news networks.” This is evident in the talking points they fed U.S. lawmakers leading to letters they sent DIRECTV in January. Among the “22 networks,” DIRECTV pays to distribute less than half, and we’d hardly classify local broadcast stations, Comedy Central, E!, and the Weather Channel as “liberal news.”
• DIRECTV is deplatforming Newsmax. As a pay TV provider, consumers pay because they want us to deliver a curated premium entertainment experience catered to their interests. This includes access to a variety of sports, news, and much more, all at the right value. We’ve never tried to be a free all-inclusive platform, and that’s not the role our customers want us to play. Additionally, we support Newsmax and their free nationwide distribution via streaming today. DIRECTV remains concerned, as others should be as well, with Newsmax’s plan to force distributors to foot the bill for their changing business model while effectively deplatforming itself from 50+ million households without pay TV come April.

In recent days, Newsmax has taken a more reasonable approach to the business dispute, shifting its rhetoric from calls to cancel to a mellower focus on viewers expressing their thoughts and desires to have the channel back on DIRECTV. We want that, too, under reasonable financial terms. This leaves us in a better place as we continue to try to reach a mutually beneficial business agreement. At the end of the day, our goal is to get our customers back to their regularly scheduled programming.