Newsmax Stock in 2025: Time to Buy or Just Media Hype?
Newsmax shares are making waves—but is this conservative media darling a smart play or just another overhyped narrative?
The Bull Case: Riding the Political Wave
With election cycles fueling partisan media, Newsmax could see ad revenue spikes. Their streaming numbers keep climbing, and cable disputes ironically boosted OTT subscriptions.
The Bear Trap: Profits vs. Propaganda
Revenue growth looks strong until you notice the burn rate. Those 'alternative facts' audiences are loyal but niche—can they monetize beyond merch and Super PAC money?
The Bottom Line
Treat this like a meme stock with better production values. If you believe in the 'culture war premium,' maybe take a position. Otherwise? Plenty of less volatile ways to lose money in media.
Image source: Getty Images.
What NewsMax offers investors
The landscape for digital media companies has been challenging for years. People have plenty of places to get their news and entertainment, and it's been difficult to find growth.
Despite the weakness in the industry, Newsmax seems to be outgrowing its peers based on its latest results.
In the first quarter, the company reported revenue growth of 11.6% to $45.3 million. This shows that Newsmax is still a small company, even though it's the fourth-highest-rated cable news channel, with more than 33 million quarterly viewers.
Growth was balanced across advertising, affiliate revenues, and subscriptions, though advertising made up nearly two-thirds of total revenue.
Newsmax reached a record of 33.6 million viewers in the quarter, up 50% from the quarter a year ago, though that may be a response to Trump's inauguration and the beginning of his term more than anything that Newsmax is doing.
The company also saw strong growth in social media, topping 20 million combined social media followers.
On the bottom line, Newsmax reported an adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) loss of $1.2 million, down from a profit of $3.2 million in the quarter a year ago, due to costs associated with the IPO and covering Trump's inauguration. On a generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) basis, the company reported a loss of $17.2 million in the quarter, or $0.49 per share.
Newsmax sees a number of opportunities for growth, including in both linear and digital channels like streaming. It also has a small product business, selling promotional products through its advertisements.
Newsmax's financials
After pulling back, Newsmax stock is trading at a more reasonable valuation, but the company is still unprofitable and has a price-to-sales ratio of 9.
As a cable news company, Newsmax's closest peer on the stock market is probably, which owns the Fox News channel, Fox Sports assets, and the flagship Fox broadcast network. Fox is profitable and trades at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 14 and a price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of 1.6.
To use another example,, which owns local television stations, is even cheaper. It's trading at a P/E of 7 and a P/S of just 0.3, indicating general pessimism about the local television market.
Is Newsmax a buy?
Typically, high-profile IPO companies hail from the tech sector or represent another fast-growing industry. Newsmax, on the other hand, represents an industry that has struggled to grow in the face of tech disruption.
Newsmax's IPO may have been timed to take advantage of the interest around Trump, but that seems to have faded. Its double-digit revenue growth is encouraging, but the stock is still much more expensive than its peers, and it's losing money.
At this point, Newsmax still isn't a buy. If its bottom line improves or its valuation falls, that could change, but for now, investors are better off avoiding the stock as the company works through those typical IPO issues.
