'Amateur hour': Fox News gloats as Newsmax struggles to keep Trump-loving viewers

Fox News is gloating over rival Newsmax suffering a ratings collapse since Donald Trump left office.

All three major cable news networks have dropped in the ratings since President Joe Biden was inaugurated and the post-election drama ended, but the aggressively pro-Trump Newsmax has lost a reported half of its audience since November -- much to the delight of Fox News staffers and executives, reported The Daily Beast.

"I laughed when I saw the news about the drop," said one Fox News staffer. "Everyone panicked over a sugar high. Nothing about it was sustainable, yet people think it's the new normal. Management panicked off of a small period of time and dismantled the entire lineup."

Newsmax can no longer rely on Trump's "big lie" about election fraud to draw viewers away from Fox News, and attempts to gin up anger against Biden only exposes the newer network as a low-budget copycat of its more popular rival.

"We all knew their ratings surge wouldn't last just because that's how the news business is especially something as amateur hour as Newsmax," said another Fox News staffer.

Fox News charges cable operators a subscriber fee, but Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy must pay a carriage fee for his network.

"I've said this for a while that [Ruddy's] over his head on financing," said a source familiar with the situation. "But when you put all these pieces together — this is a big operation, he's hired a lot of people, there's a lot of turnover. The advertising thing hasn't changed dramatically in his favor. The ratings are down. He's paying cable operators."