Newsmax (NMAX) Q1 2026 Earnings Transcript

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Date

May 14, 2026, at 4:30 p.m. ET

Call participants

• Chief Executive Officer — Christopher Ruddy
• Chief Financial Officer — Darryle Burnham

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Takeaways

• Total revenue -- $51.7 million, up 14% year over year, with gains attributable to multi-platform audience expansion, increased affiliate, and licensing revenue.
• Broadcast revenue -- $43.7 million, a 20.8% year-over-year increase, led by significant growth in affiliate fee and licensing streams.
• Digital revenue -- $8 million, down 12.7% year over year, driven by lower advertising, subscription, and product sales within digital platforms.
• Advertising revenue -- $27.2 million, a 5.8% decline year over year, mainly reflecting tough comparisons post-2024 election surge, with the decline offset by growth in linear cable, and satellite advertising.
• Affiliate revenue -- $13 million, up 75.2% year over year, reflecting new contractual agreements and rate escalations implemented in late 2025.
• Subscription revenue -- $6.4 million, down 7.9% year over year, as increased Newsmax+ subscriber adoption was outweighed by declines in publication subscriptions due to weaker new customer signups.
• Product sales revenue -- $1.5 million, representing a 3.5% year-over-year decrease, primarily from reduced book and supplement sales.
• Licensing revenue -- $3.5 million, significantly higher than the $437,000 reported a year ago, due to expanded licensing agreements.
• Net loss -- $2.2 million, an 87.3% improvement over the prior year's $17.2 million net loss, attributed to increased revenue, lower legal expenses, and greater other income.
• Adjusted EBITDA -- Negative $0.4 million, decreased by $0.8 million year over year, reflecting higher production, programming, and personnel expenses, partially offset by affiliate fee and licensing revenue growth.
• Total audience reach -- 30.4 million total viewers, and 13.3 million adults aged 35 to 64, maintaining Newsmax's ranking as fourth-highest rated cable news channel, and a top 15 cable network in key dayparts.
• Sequential audience growth -- Total viewership increased 29% from fiscal Q4 2025 (ended Dec. 31, 2025), with continued positive momentum observed into April.
• Social media followers -- 24.7 million at quarter end, surpassing 25 million in May, signaling expanding digital engagement and reach across multiple platforms.
• Newsmax2 streaming platform -- Delivered a sequential increase of more than 22% in news hours viewed, and showed improved audience metrics across all major dayparts.
• International expansion -- Licensing agreement with Telecom Serbia extended, with international partnerships growing, and Newsmax Poland launching during the quarter.
• Cash and short-term investments -- $129 million at quarter end, positioning the company for ongoing investment in programming, and strategic initiatives.
• Full year 2026 revenue guidance -- Guidance reaffirmed at $212 million to $216 million, which the company stated, representing 13% growth at this midpoint.

Summary

Newsmax (NYSE:NMAX) reported sequential audience growth, enhanced international operations, and continued investment in content, resulting in a marked improvement in net loss and expansion of its platform reach. Management identified the fourth-highest rank in cable news and substantial growth in streaming audiences as supporting diversification initiatives. New distribution agreements and expanded platform positioning, including with Optimum Altice and Pluto TV, were identified as drivers of incremental reach and future revenue potential.

• Christopher Ruddy stated, "Strategically, this quarter reinforced what we have said for some time. Newsmax is a differentiated multi-platform media company. We are not dependent on any single channel. We continue to integrate cable, FAST, subscription streaming, digital, and social in a way that expands engagement and strengthens monetization."
• Pluto TV recently moved Newsmax up in its News Guide section, which Newsmax management described as very positive for the platform's visibility.
• Optimum Altice renewal is expected to add approximately 0.25 million subscribers, increasing the company's total potential audience via cable.
• Social media strategy focused on engagement across newer platforms like TikTok and Instagram is reported to attract younger demographic interest, enhancing long-term growth prospects.
• Adjusted programming schedules, including the repositioning of anchor Carl Higbie to the 6:00 p.m. slot, are credited with contributing to recent audience gains across key nighttime segments.
• Despite advertising softness, management highlighted licensing, affiliate fees, and international growth as central to structural, not cyclical, revenue expansion for 2026.

Industry glossary

• FAST: Free Ad-Supported Streaming Television—a digital streaming platform that delivers live and on-demand content without a subscription fee, monetized through advertising.
• Affiliate fees: Payments that content providers like Newsmax receive from cable and satellite providers in exchange for the right to distribute their channels.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Christopher Ruddy: Thank you, Chris, and welcome, everyone, to our first quarter 2026 earnings call. Newsmax delivered a strong start to 2026. In the first quarter, we maintained our strong audience reach across cable, streaming and digital, while continuing to strengthen the scale of our platform. We reported Revenue of $51.7 million, up 14% year-over-year, and Broadcast Revenue of $43.7 million, up over 20%. What stands out to me most is the quality of the quarter. We delivered broad first quarter audience reach with 30.4 million total viewers and 13.3 million adults 35 to 64, reinforcing Newsmax's position as the fourth highest rated cable news channel and a top 15 cable network across key dayparts.

We are also maintaining some of the strongest audience engagement with adults 35 to 64, ranking #2 in cable news by a wide margin. In a period when the media industry is seeing declines versus the post-election news consumption and presidential inauguration in early 2025, our first quarter rankings show that Newsmax continues to perform strongly in a more normalized environment. Despite the challenging comparison, we are encouraged by the 29% sequential increase in total viewership during the quarter versus Q4 2025 and by the continued momentum we saw in April. In addition, we continued to strengthen our multi-platform audience ecosystem with social media followers reaching 24.7 million at quarter end and now surpassing 25 million followers in May.

We are also encouraged by the continued progress in our business model. As anticipated, cable and pay-TV affiliate fee and licensing momentum helped drive growth in the quarter, while our profitability improved year-over-year as we continue to invest in programming, production and OTT initiatives that we believe support long-term expansion. We ended the quarter with $129 million in cash and short-term investments, giving us the financial flexibility to continue investing behind our growth and from a position of strength. Strategically, this quarter reinforced what we have said for some time. Newsmax is a differentiated multi-platform media company. We are not dependent on any single channel.

We continue to integrate cable, FAST, subscription streaming, digital and social in a way that expands engagement and strengthens monetization. Newsmax2, our free streaming platform, delivered sequential news hours growth of more than 22% and improved viewership across every key daypart, and we continue to see streaming as an important part of our future. At the same time, we are investing in our paid subscription platform, Newsmax Plus, as we grow our family-friendly premium content. This includes a major expansion of our military history channels, World at War and War and Warriors, where available titles increased more than 200%. Internationally, we continue to build real momentum.

During the quarter, we expanded our licensing agreement with Telecom Serbia, continued to grow our international partnerships and saw Newsmax Poland go live. More broadly, we believe international licensing and brand expansion represent a meaningful opportunity for Newsmax and one that can extend our reach and diversify revenue in a highly cost-efficient way. We are expecting to have more announcements over the coming quarters. Looking ahead, we are reiterating our full 2026 revenue guidance of $212 million to $216 million, representing 13% growth at this midpoint. We continue to expect that growth to be structural, not cyclical with -- led by higher-margin affiliate fee expansion and licensing growth, along with ongoing investment in premium content and digital monetization.

We also expect an improved operating profile as we move through the year. Stepping back, we believe there remains significant white space for independent, reliable values-driven journalism that resonates with audiences who have lost trust in legacy media. The right-leaning marketplace is a proven and vast market opportunity with limited true alternatives from legacy cable platforms. Newsmax is effectively capitalizing on the substantial demand by serving as the primary alternative to legacy media and staying ahead of audience migration across platforms.

We are cementing our position as a trusted multi-platform leader in the space, not just from the legacy cable world, but also with the millions of people cutting the cord and going to streaming platforms, tuning into our Newsmax2 channel and our app. Newsmax continues to attract unique viewers, gain traction with younger and other key demographics and build a highly loyal audience in this underserved center-right market. We believe that positions us well to expand our reach, strengthen monetization and deliver sustainable long-term growth in the United States and around the world. I will now turn the call over to Darryle Burnham, our Chief Financial Officer, to discuss our financial results for the first quarter 2026.

Darryle Burnham: Thank you, Chris, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. As Chris highlighted, we delivered a strong start to 2026 with solid revenue growth and continued expansion across our multi-platform expansion. We are particularly encouraged by the quality of this growth, supported by increased reach, deeper engagement across cable, streaming and digital and continued progress in building a more diversified and durable revenue model. At the same time, we are maintaining a disciplined approach to investment as we position the company for long-term expansion. We continue to allocate capital towards programming, production and OTT initiatives, supporting our strategic priorities around content, distribution and international expansion.

This balanced approach positions us well to build on our momentum and deliver sustainable performance over time. Turning to our first quarter results. In the first quarter, we delivered $51.7 million in total revenues, representing a 14% increase year-over-year. Breaking this down by revenue stream for the quarter, first starting with our reportable segments. Total broadcasting revenues grew by 20.8% year-over-year to $43.7 million in the first quarter of 2026. Our growth in broadcasting was driven by affiliate fee revenue growth and licensing growth. Total digital revenues declined 12.7% year-over-year to $8 million in the first quarter of 2026. This decrease was driven by declines in advertising, subscription revenue and product sales. Now turning to our revenue by component.

Advertising revenues decreased to $27.2 million, a 5.8% year-over-year decline, mainly due to lower digital advertising, reflecting a tougher comparison following the elevated demand environment associated with the 2024 election cycle. This was partially offset by higher linear cable and satellite advertising revenue due to expanded reach from new affiliate agreements. Affiliate revenues increased 75.2% year-over-year to $13 million, driven by new contractual relationships as well as rate increases that took effect in late 2025. Subscription revenues of $6.4 million were down 7.9% year-over-year as growth in Newsmax+ subscribers was more than offset by lower publication subscription revenue, primarily reflecting reduced new customer acquisition.

Product sales revenues decreased 3.5% year-over-year to $1.5 million, primarily driven by decreased book and supplement sales. Licensing revenue was $3.5 million, up from $437,000 in 2025 due to expanded licensing agreements. We reported a quarterly net loss of $2.2 million, an 87.3% improvement compared to a net loss of $17.2 million in the prior year quarter. This improvement in net loss was primarily driven by higher total revenue, lower legal expenses and improved other income, partially offset by higher production headcount, programming and production costs, continued investment in Newsmax2 and higher stock-based compensation.

Our quarterly adjusted EBITDA was negative $0.4 million, a decrease of $0.8 million from the amount reported in the same quarter last year, reflecting higher production, programming and personnel costs associated with our continued investment in content and OTT initiatives, partially offset by growth in affiliate fee and licensing revenue within our Broadcast segment. We're encouraged by the strong performance to start off the year and remain confident in our previously disclosed full year revenue guidance of $212 million to $216 million, representing a 13% growth year-over-year at the midpoint of the range, an acceleration on the growth we realized in 2025.

In closing, we remain focused on disciplined execution as we continue to invest in our content, distribution and OTT initiatives to support long-term growth. With a strong balance sheet and a diversified multi-platform revenue model, we believe we are well positioned to build on our progress and drive sustainable value for our shareholders. Thank you for your time today, and we look forward to updating you on our continued progress during the next quarter's earnings call. Now we would like to open the line for analyst questions. Operator?

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your first question is coming from Michael Kupinski from NOBLE Capital.

Michael Kupinski: Congratulations on a great quarter. Recently, you mentioned about the strong audience growth in April. And I was just wondering a couple of questions around that. How much of the ratings improvement might be tied to your expanded distribution of the network? And then how much do you think might be related to the investments in your content, if you can parse that out? And then if you can also just chat a little bit about how much of that ratings growth might be tied to the news flow and geopolitical events. I'm just trying to get a sense of how sustainable do you believe the ratings might be going forward?

Christopher Ruddy: Well, I think, Michael, it's difficult to ascertain exactly all the benefits of where the -- what's resulting in the larger traffic. I think it's a combination maybe of all of the above. When Nielsen gives the ratings, they don't say it's from this source or from that source. They just give raw numbers. We are in a situation where there has been a very significant war. And of course, that started in Q1, the Iran conflict on February 28 to be exact. And so that obviously has led to an uptick since then. There are periods that there are lulls and then there are periods in this war so far that there's not a lot of news.

There hasn't been a lot of news because there has been something of a ceasefire for the past week or 2. That may change. We are continuing to do a lot of marketing promotion. We're continuing to do a lot of social media. I think the social media numbers that we have reported that show that we're up above now 25 million aggregate followers is very significant. And that we said would impact engagement, and we believe it partly does. We have made some changes in the lineup. Carl Higbie, we moved to 6:00 p.m., which really starts what we say is our nighttime programming. Greta, who is a fantastic journalist, ratings are usually not as strong.

We have moved her to 4:00 p.m. So I think that's helping access and then leading into prime time. So there is no one thing, but we also -- there are primaries, for instance, we're expecting a lot of interest in the upcoming in the Texas primary at the end of May. And then, of course, there's the California primary where the governor's races there are of particular interest nationally. So we'll see some of that. And then the congressional elections. The Senate elections this year are going to be very heated. So we are expecting that there'll be strong engagement due to the congressionals this year.

Darryle Burnham: Michael, this is Darryle. I was just going to add a little bit to that. In the broader picture, I think some of the components that Chris talked about are very important, right? I mean overall news is still something that is consumed live, and I do believe that there is still a lot of value in that. And as Chris mentioned, there will be cyclical cycles to the overall ratings but what we're really encouraged by is just the momentum we're seeing within our overall reach and the engagement that we're seeing with the consumers.

So there'll be an increased engagement in all of cable news or all of news actually as we get into the third and fourth quarter of this year because there'll be more interest in the midterms. We'll see continued increases as we start to approach in future years towards the presidential election. So overall, I think that there's still a lot of interest in news and politics, and the different types of stories that we're covering. So we do think that, that is sustainable for the long period.

Michael Kupinski: Got you. And then one follow-up. Obviously, you're getting some significant rate in your negotiations for affiliate fees. But I was wondering if there's some ancillary benefits in that as well. Particularly, are you getting improved channel placement, broader packaging and inclusion, minimum subscriber guarantees, anything else that you might be able to benefit from your negotiations?

Christopher Ruddy: Well, I think our packages have been very strong. They're all usually in basic distribution. There is an effort underway on the pay TV ecosystem to move news channels and other channels into packages or tiers. And we have resisted that. And as far as I know, in all of our main deals, we are on the basic package. We did renew with Cablevision, now called Optimum Altice, and there will be some added subscribers. I think there'll be about 0.25 million added subscribers as a result of that. But the pay TV world overall is declining, and we're seeing increases on the streaming side, and we see that as very positive, and we're on almost every major platform there.

And CBS -- sorry, Paramount, on their Pluto positioning just recently moved Newsmax up in the news guide section of their Pluto TV guide. So we saw that as very positive. That happened recently. So again, more and more OTT distribution, I think, is going to help in streaming, and we're going to try to keep very consistent on the cable pay TV side.

Michael Kupinski: Yes. If I could just slip one more in about the ratings. Given the improved ratings trends, are advertisers become more willing to shift with larger national brand budgets towards Newsmax at this point? Are you starting to see that with the ratings improvement?

Christopher Ruddy: Well, we saw last year an increasing number of brands that were buying ads, and we hope that we would continue. There's no real guarantee that's going to happen, but we do see an improvement in brand advertising. And we do believe that over time, we'll see. People sometimes think there's a very linear connection between growth in ratings that somehow means or that you'll have immediate revenue growth. We have found over the history of the channel, we started in 2014 that there's oftentimes lag effects and it takes a while. Marketing spends are not linear and that the increased engagement that comes with that does not necessarily translate immediately.

So people need to think about the long-term impact of what we're doing. And I think when you do that, we operate in a center right market for pay TV and OTT. There's not many competitors in that field, and it's a very big marketplace. It's half the country almost or some people say it's more than half the country. And there's very limited ability of players to access that. And so therefore, we think we're in a very prime position for growth and expansion.

Operator: Your next question is coming from Thomas Forte from Maxim Group.

Thomas Forte: So Chris and Darryle, congratulations. I apologize if you touched on these in your prepared remarks, I'm juggling multiple calls today. I have one question and one follow-up. Chris, you reported strong results for ratings in both the first quarter and the month of April. What were the drivers of the results? And what gives you confidence that growth is sustainable?

Christopher Ruddy: Well, we chatted a little bit about that, Tom, in the last question. And I think that there's a couple of factors. It was a war that started in Q1 in Iran. There's increasing interest in political things with primaries taking place in congressional, Senate and gubernatorial races across the country. We believe our efforts in marketing and social media having an impact on the growth that we're seeing there and changing some of the scheduling to improve ratings, starting with Carl Higbie and the nighttime program, we think, have been helpful. So all of those above, it's very hard to say exactly what causes it, but we're seeing general trends tend to be positive.

Thomas Forte: Great. And then you kind of teased my second question. So you also posted impressive social media growth, not only on platforms that would seem to have a natural audience overlap such as Truth Social, but also in what I would consider to be younger demographic, social media platforms, Instagram, TikTok. So first off, what do you attribute that performance? And again, what gives you confidence the growth is sustainable?

Christopher Ruddy: We have a very robust team that does social media. We probably have about 15 people that sit there and working many hours of the day and night and the weekends. I think we've been pretty effective in the group Amplify does a lot of our studies and they're very respected and they show that we typically have either the highest or among the highest engagement for news organization in our category. And so we think that, that's a testament to the good content we're putting out. I think younger people are more likely to consume news on social media than older people, especially in some of the platforms you discussed like TikTok.

And so that -- any expansion that we would see on TikTok would mean that there would probably be a lot more younger people tuning in. And I think there is younger people that are pretty interested in politics these days. They're very fascinated one way or another by Donald Trump, for instance. So these types of things, I think, are driving interest by a younger demo.

Operator: Thank you. That completes our Q&A session. Everyone, this concludes today's event. You may disconnect at this time, and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.

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