NEWSMAX

https://www.directv.com/tvpromise/ 

Apologies, rephrasing- "baloney"

I don't like the cancelling of Newsmax either. I don't think DirecTv should be the only one paying them and it was not a small amount of change.

They need to charge all or none.

I hate to break it to you, but NewsMax watchers aren't a major portion of their customers, nor does it rule over the other news channels.  NewsMax had a big bump in viewership around the 2020 election, but that has gone away.  For 2022, the average prime time viewership for Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, and NewsMax respectively were 2.2M (ranked 5), 1.2M (ranked 8), 735k (ranked 21), and 180k (ranked 72) - so it's not exactly burning up the airwaves. 

NewsMax's previous deal with DirecTV and the other carriers was either paying the carriers a small fee and keeping all their commercial time or being carried for free and providing the carriers a small number of commercial slots.  DirecTV was apparently willing provide NewsMax an even better deal than that - to allow NewsMax to be carried free and keep all their commercial slots.  But NewsMax demanded more than that - they wanted significant carriage fees - well beyond anything their ratings would justify.  That's the reason DirecTV (and lots of other carriers) dropped them - free enterprise.

BTW - DTV is a separate company from AT&T these days.  Even if it wasn't, AT&T (like most major corporations) is politically conservative, and contributes far more to Republican candidates and PACs than to Democratic ones.  But you're going to believe what you want to believe.

Well, for me the negotiations ended today.  I suspended my service to give them time to negotiate, but now I've closed my account.  No Newsmax for me, no $128/month for AT&T.