Newsmax free service ending

Newsmax isn't shutting down, but it will cost to watch the service soon.

There has been a carrier dispute with DirecTV, which includes U-Verse and DirecTV Stream, which has resulted in the conservative news channel being removed from those platforms.

DirecTV has added a new conservative news service, The First, to the lineups of those three platforms, softening the blow to conservative viewers.

Now, days after the dispute resulted in the loss of the service, Newsmax is ending its free streams, taking everything behind a paywall:

It should be noted that while the free version has been readily avaialable for Newsmax customers without said pay-TV partners the pay services have been paying Newsmax retransmision fees for the right to have the news feed built into its official channel guide along side other cable news channels like CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. The free feed may well have made the fees paid feel like too high a demand since they were unlikely to drive subscribers who were specifically looking for Newsmax.

Newsmax says that its service is the 4th highest-rated cable news channel in U.S. and a top 16 cable channel though according to Variety Newsmax TV is tied for No 72. Indie Wire had a similar story that placed Newsmax as the number 52 most popular channel in cable channel according to Nielson ratings. And just to fend off any accusation of “libberal Bias” Indie Wire acknowleged Fox News as the top cable channel as far as prime time viewers and Nielson Ratings.

Is this the break that The First was looking for? Or will this actually benefit Newsmax in the long run? How will DirecTV come out of this?

I have no idea. And it doesn't really impact me as I never watched Newsmax free service, nor use the DirecTV platforms. However, this may be of interest to some of you. In that respect, I hope you end up with a better Streaming Life as a result.