Chris Ruddy is proving you don’t need Fox News’ scale to make trouble for Fox News.
The Newsmax chief’s antitrust suit against his far larger rival — alleging Fox used exclusionary carriage deals to strangle Newsmax’s reach on streaming platforms — got tossed last year, but Ruddy refiled and keeps punching: Ruddy and allies in the White House have been pressing the Justice Department’s antitrust enforcers to block Fox’s $22 billion acquisition of Roku, according to people familiar with the matter and communications viewed by Semafor. The DOJ widened its investigation into the deal’s effects on streaming competition.
Ruddy failed to foil the Nexstar-Tegna combination or to get a $250 million compensation fund included in an FTC settlement over an advertising-giants merger. But he has a line to Trump and has shown he can keep much bigger companies’ lawyers busy. Fox has called Ruddy’s antitrust case an effort by Newsmax to “sue their way out of their own competitive failures.” Ruddy declined to comment. DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.