Enlarge / Newsmax logo displayed at the National Rifle Association's annual meeting in Houston, Texas on May 28, 2022. (credit: Getty Images | Patrick T. Fallon)

Two months after dumping Newsmax instead of paying a new fee, DirecTV has reached a deal to put the conservative news network back in the satellite provider's channel lineup.

Newsmax had waged an aggressive public relations campaign against DirecTV. "This is a blatant act of political discrimination and censorship against Newsmax," Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy said on January 25 in an article on the network's website .

Newsmax changed its tune today when announcing the deal that will put Newsmax back on DirecTV starting tomorrow. "While we raised the issue of censorship relating to our removal, we now believe in DirecTV's commitment to distributing diverse viewpoints, including conservative ones," Newsmax said in a statement provided to Ars.

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Newsmax is no longer on DirecTV, as the satellite video provider today said it decided not to renew an expiring deal because of Newsmax's money demands.

"On multiple occasions, we made it clear to Newsmax that we wanted to continue to offer the network, but ultimately Newsmax's demands for rate increases would have led to significantly higher costs that we would have to pass on to our broad customer base," DirecTV said in a statement provided to Ars. (AT&T owns 70 percent of DirecTV.)

The carriage deal expired at midnight last night. The "rate increase" demanded by Newsmax was actually from a base of $0 because DirecTV didn't have to pay Newsmax to carry the network under their now-expired deal, a DirecTV spokesperson told Ars. DirecTV says it was one of the first pay-TV providers to carry Newsmax starting in 2014.