Newsmax CEO: ‘We Are Not Actively Selling,’ Have No Desire to Be ‘Trump TV’

Newsmax may be focused on conservative audiences, but it has very liberal views of where its business can go in the future as an independent news operation.

The top executive of the news outlet said the company intends to move forward on its own, and noted Newsmax has little desire to turn the network, which has seen its ratings pop since the presidential election, into a TV outlet focused largely on a forum for a post-White House Donald Trump.

“Newsmax would never become ‘Trump TV,'” Christopher Ruddy, the CEO of Newsmax, told Variety in an interview Sunday evening. “We have always seen ourselves as an independent news agency, and we want to continue with that mission. But we are open — [Trump] is going to be a political and media force after he leaves the White House, and we would be open to talking to him about a weekly show.” The executive also said “we are not actively selling” the company at this time, though he notes he has had expressions of interest from “investors, investment banks and strategic players” in the recent past.

“We listen to them, but our main focus is continuing: We would like to overtake Fox News in the next 12 months, and I think it’s do-able.”

Ruddy made his remarks following a report Sunday from The Wall Street Journal that said private-equity firm Hicks Equity Partners had explored the idea of “acquiring and investing in Newsmax,” potentially as part of an effort to build a rival to Fox News Channel. “We have no deal with them” says Ruddy, who noted that he has had conversations on various topics with Thomas Hicks, the firm’s leader. “I have spoken to him on and off through the past three years, because we travel in political and social circles. It’s nothing unusual for us to have a conversation.”

A representative for Hicks Equity could not be reached for immediate comment.

Wall Street has been unusually focused on the potential for a Fox News competitor to rise from the right, a sign of how much the company depends on the cable outlet for profit. The Fox Corporation-owned outlet has for years vied with AT&T’s CNN and NBCUniversal’s MSNBC, but has by and large outflanked both of them. Fox News’ primetime shows draw bigger audiences and win more advertising and distribution revenue than either network. “We speculate that perhaps, over time, the new network could lop off around 20% of the Fox News audience and reach 10% share of the entire news market,” said Michael Nathanson of research firm MoffettNathanson in a recent note. Fox Corp. executives were sanguine about the prospects for an upstart to challenge its business. “We love competition,” Lachlan Murdoch, Fox Corp.’s executive chairman and CEO said during a recent call with investors. “We have always thrived with competition, and we have strong competition now.”

Fox News, which has a robust relationship with President Trump and his White House since his ascension to the Oval Office, has recently found itself in his crosshairs. On Election Night, Fox News was first to call Arizona for President-elect Joe Biden — a development that Trump has seen as a betrayal of sorts. That didn’t keep Trump affiliates like Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney; South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham; and House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy from appearing Sunday morning on the Fox News program “Sunday Morning Futures” with anchor Maria Bartiromo.

Newsmax has seen its viewership spike in recent days, with its 7 p.m. program, “Greg Kelly Reports,” notching 1.06 million viewers on November 12. Fox News Channel’s program at that time, “The Story with Martha MacCallum,” captured 2.4 million viewers. Ruddy feels his network enjoys an advantage over its more-established rival: Viewers can get its content via broadband more easily, while Fox News keeps off-cable viewing windows of its programming on subscriber services like Fox Nation. Newsmax recently said its free mobile app has had more than two million downloads in November.

Unlike many mainstream news outlets, Newsmax has yet to tell its viewers that Biden has won the election. “We are waiting for the states’ certification and the electoral college, but we will at some point when that happens,” says Ruddy. “We will be supportive of whoever the next president is.”

Ruddy says the company believes in its current business. “Newsmax is moderately conservative and we will continue to have a moderately conservative viewpoint on things — including the president.”

https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/newsmax-ceo-christopher-ruddy-fox-news-trump-tv-1234832336/

Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) claims 'market data issues' in trade pause

A software issue limited to the trading of multiple securities in a single order created inaccurate market data, forcing the exchange to pause trade.

The go-live of the refreshed Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) trade system was on Monday interrupted by "market data issues", later revealed as a software issue, causing the ASX to pause trade.

The ASX's status page showed its ultra-latency cash equity market trading platform, ASX Trade, was paused. The trading services ASX TradeMatch and ASX Centre Point both operate on ASX Trade.

Impacted services include equities, exchange-traded funds, exchange-traded options, warrants, index options, interest rate securities, and Australian government bonds.

"The ASX equity market is currently paused and there is no trading while we investigate market data issues," a spokesperson for the exchange told ZDNet, repeating what was provided in a tweet shortly after reports of an outage started surfacing.

"ASX apologises for the disruption and is working to rectify the issue as soon as possible."

It updated users via Twitter, saying it was continuing to investigate the issue causing today's market outage.

The exchange later said ASX equity markets would not open for the remainder of today.

It also said the underlying cause of the issue had been identified, however, and a resolution path would be in place to allow trading to commence on Tuesday at 10am AEDT.

The issue was shortly after revealed as being a software issue.

"ASX and its technology provider Nasdaq have identified the root cause and a resolution path to fix it. A software issue limited to the trading of multiple securities in a single order (combination trading) created inaccurate market data," the exchange said.

With Monday being the go-live date for the refreshed ASX Trade system, the exchange said Nasdaq, customers, and independent specialist third parties conducted extensive testing for over a year, including four dress rehearsals, in preparation for sending it out in the wild. ASX said the refresh is the latest generation of a Nasdaq-developed trading system used around the world.

"ASX is very disappointed with today's outage … the outage falls short of the high standards we set ourselves and the standards others expect of us," ASX managing director and CEO Dominic Stevens said.

"Notwithstanding the extensive testing and rehearsals, and the involvement of our technology provider, ASX accepts responsibility. The obligation to get this right and provide a reliable and resilient trading system for the market rests with us.

"While I am disappointed with today's outage, we are determined to continue our program of contemporising ASX's technology stack from top to bottom. This initiative is critical to ASX building an exchange for the future and ensuring we best serve the needs of our customers and the Australian market."

In delivering its results for the 2020 financial year, the ASX said it experienced its highest ever trading volume. It also boasted 100% up time of its key trading and post-trade systems.

The exchange in 2018 was asked to up its risk management practices following an "unprecedented" hardware failure in September 2016 that resulted in the outage of its equity market.

https://www.zdnet.com/index.php/category/2381/index.php/article/asx-claims-market-data-issues-in-trade-pause/