March 9th, 2014

Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy to CNN’s Brian Stelter: we’re bigger than the core audience of Fox News

CNN’s Brian Stelter spoke with Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy about his plans to expand his conservative website into television.

Ruddy described his new venture to CNN:

RUDDY: We have 5 million opt-in email subscribers. That’s bigger, I believe, than the core audience of FOX news, which is 3-4 million on cable. So online, we’re already I think a significant power house, and I think this is just the next step for us…The boomer market which we’re focusing on has 80 million Americans. There’s really not much on cable, servicing them. The other thing is I think everybody is focused on cable, but it’s much broader now than cable; The Internet, over the top devices, smart phones. There’s 100 million smart phone users. And they can all go to newsmax now, where they won’t be able to go to FOX news. So I think the future is um, rapidly developing and we’re going to be there.

STELTER: So what you’re describing is similar to the WWE, the wrestling network. They said they were going to bypass cable and just create an online video network… But it sounds like you would like to have both, you would like to be on traditional cable systems as well as be available online, is that right?

RUDDY: Well, a lot of our plans are evolving. It could be a situation down the road, where we actually have two channels, one would be for, the cable industry, and another would be for the online world. Right now we have one. We’re very flexible. We’re open to new ideas and new ways of doing thing things. I think we will be welcomed.

For a full transcript of this edition of the program, including this interview, please visit: http://bit.ly/NORBO4

CNN’s Reliable Sources with Brian Stelter airs Sundays at 11:00am ET on CNN/U.S.

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