A New Film by Dinesh D’Souza to Debut in 2024
Right Wing Biz Watch
By David Lieberman, May 11, 2023
“2000 Mules” director Dinesh D’Souza plans to return to movie theaters and streaming venues in early 2024, his financial backer Salem Media Group said on Tuesday.
The right-wing radio and publishing company said it has invested $1.5 million in a limited liability company that will own D’Souza’s new film, but it did not disclose his topic.
“We’re very excited to be partners with Dinesh again,” Chief Operating Officer David A.R. Evans told analysts in a late afternoon conference call. “The last movie was a great success and we’re looking forward to another great success with him.”
Last year Salem said that it had made a $4.8 million profit on “2,000 Mules,” a movie purporting voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, by the end of June after recouping its $4.5 million investment.
The film’s many critics said it failed to prove its claim that President Joe Biden stole the 2020 election from Donald Trump. Former Trump-era Attorney General Bill Barr called film’s assertions “unimpressive” and “indefensible.”
In 2018 Trump pardoned D’Souza, who had pleaded guilty in 2014 to making campaign contributions under other people’s names.
The film announcement came as Salem disclosed it lost more money than it had forecast for the first three months of 2023 – and will likely do so again in the current quarter. Wall Street responded by driving Salem’s stock price down by 10.5 percent on Wednesday to 94 cents per share, the lowest it has been since 2020.
The company reported a net loss of $5.2 million in the first quarter, down from a $1.7 million profit in the same period last year, on revenues of $63.5 million, up 1.4%.
Salem’s digital initiatives suffered from “the demise of the third-party cookie and algorithm changes made by Facebook to present less politically related content,” CEO David Santrella said.
That resulted in an 80 percent drop in Facebook-related traffic at Salem’s right-wing news site Townhall.com.
The company recorded a $2.1 million impairment charge on a Miami AM radio station it bought, along with an FM transmitter, in January for $3.2 million – part of its strategy to profit from programming Santrella describes as “conservative news talk and Christian talk formats.”
Salem says political ads for the 2024 election aren’t rolling in just yet but that should change soon. “The Republican debates kick off in August and there will be a series of debates from August through the end of the year,” Evans said. “So, presumably, there’ll be a bunch of candidates running who will want to market to our audience.”
Salem also spilled red ink at its Regnery Publishing unit. It recorded an operating loss of $700,000 as marketing costs overwhelmed revenues from titles including James Rosen’s “Scalia: Rise to Greatness: 1936 – 1986,” Eric Metaxas’ “Letter to the American Church,” and Grant Newsham’s “When China Attacks: A Warning to America.”
The company is optimistic about Sen. Josh Hawley’s upcoming book, “Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs,” and George Gilder’s “Life After Capitalism: The Meaning of Wealth, the Future of the Economy, and the Time Theory of Money.”
Still, the current quarter will have fewer releases than the period last year – which is one reason Salem warned investors to expect continued weakening. Revenues in the three months ending in June will drop as much as 7 percent from the period last year, while recurring operating expenses could rise as much as 6 percent, the company forecast.
Salem eliminated 44 positions in March, about 3 percent of its workforce. That, plus other cuts, could save about $5 million a year.
Right Wing Biz Watch is a ongoing series of articles examining the business and finances of right wing media. Its author, David Lieberman, covered the media business full time for 30 years at USA Today and other publications before joining The New School as an Associate Professor in its graduate Media Management program.
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The right wing company Salem Media is backing a Dinesh D’Souza film once again fresh on the heels of his profitable theatrically released documentary “2000 Mules.” The topic has not been disclosed. (Image: Pixabay)
