A Newsmax report on the situation said DirecTV refused to pay carriage fees for the channel, "even though its pays 22 liberal news and information channels' fees, many with ratings much lower than Newsmax." The outlet didn't say which news channels had lower ratings than Newmax; DirecTV carries far fewer than 22 cable news channels across its system. Newsmax said three other cable systems agreed to its demand for carriage fees during retransmission negotiations within the last year.