OAN Stars Bolt for Newsmax as Pro-Trump Network Reaches New Levels of Bonkers

[Celerity]

In recent months, Newsmax has quietly poached some top OAN talent who, insiders said, sought either bigger audiences or a move away from the MAGA channel’s epic nuttiness.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/oan-stars-bolt-for-newsmax-as-pro-trump-network-reaches-new-levels-of-bonkers



As the two fringe cable TV outlets battle for former President Donald Trump’s affections, several high-profile One America News staffers have jumped ship to Newsmax—not just in pursuit of a larger audience, insiders said, but also as a respite from OAN’s increasing extremism. Already known for its cartoonishly bonkers MAGA propagandizing, OAN in recent months has veered even further into unhinged right-wing territory. And Newsmax—which is often just as obsequiously pro-Trump in its commentary—has pulled back on its wildest election conspiracy theories while hoovering up some of OAN’s top on-air talent: news anchor Alex Salvi, correspondent Jenn Pellegrino, and reporter Amanda Brilhante. Those moves followed Newsmax poaching OAN’s White House correspondent Emerald Robinson last year. Pellegrino, who served as a White House correspondent and on-air host for OAN, abruptly left the far-right channel earlier this month, only for Newsmax to announce her debut as co-anchor of a 9 p.m. ET program called Cortes and Pellegrino, co-hosted by former Trump campaign senior adviser Steve Cortes.

In late March, meanwhile, Salvi—one of OAN’s rare “straight news” anchors—revealed during his media-focused show After Hours that he was exiting the network after hosting since 2019. A few weeks later, Salvi quietly showed up on Newsmax, revealing his new role as a Rome-based foreign correspondent with the network. Brilhante, who’d been with OAN since graduating college in 2017, was hired away in February to be Newsmax’s breaking news reporter. The Newsmax poaching of One America News staffers has come as OAN struggles with an ostensible exodus of talent. Network president Charles Herring recently acknowledged to The New York Times that the already thinly staffed network has lost more than a dozen staffers in recent months. “We are not surprised that other networks target OAN as a goal to reach and look to hire our staff, thinking it might improve their ratings,” Herring said in a statement to The Daily Beast.

According to insiders—including current Newsmax staffers—who spoke with The Daily Beast, the uptick in OAN staffers abandoning ship can be chalked up to the network’s minuscule ratings, its lower pay, and the fact that Newsmax is only ever-so-slightly less toxic in its diehard MAGA politics. “They left for more exposure. There is less reach at OAN,” one current Newsmax employee told The Daily Beast of the Salvi and Pellegrino jumps to the network, noting that OAN has “always been a revolving door.” The source specifically cited Tomi Lahren as the prime example of a right-wing figure using OAN as a career launch pad—in her case, eventually landing at Fox News. “I’m sure the idea of coming to a startup and making a name for yourself at a place where you have the chance to become, say, the next Sean Hannity is very appealing to young talent,” one current Newsmax staffer said. “Especially for talent coming from one conservative network to another.”

Another insider was more direct: “Newsmax probably pays more… they have a much bigger name and have gotten a lot of press over the last year-and-a-half or so. And lastly, they’re not quite as extreme as OAN. So, it’s a safer place.” Reached for comment, Herring took the opportunity to swipe at Newsmax for filling its on-air roster with former OAN and Fox News personalities. “OAN’s talent pool is deep and strong,” he said. “OAN has developed a solid reputation of nurturing and building talent—not taking the path of hiring former talent that may have fallen out of favor or ran into issues at a prior national news network.” Following the 2020 presidential election, Newsmax experienced explosive growth in viewership by directly appealing to disgruntled MAGA holdouts who were incensed with Fox News for acknowledging Joe Biden’s election win over Trump. While Newsmax’s ratings have since precipitously fallen, along with the rest of cable news, the network still pulls in far more viewers than it did pre-election, averaging roughly 150,000 total viewers per day.

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[keithbvadu2]

1. The two people probably profiting the best from this ultra-conservative competition are Hannity and

The two people probably profiting the best from this ultra-conservative competition are Hannity and Carlson. Fox does not dare let them go.