Underdog conservative channel Newsmax is challenging Rupert Murdoch’s dominant Fox News in court.

Newsmax sued Fox News parent firm Fox Corp. Wednesday, accusing Murdoch’s television company of anti-competitive behavior designed to squeeze rivals to maintain its “unlawful monopolization of the Right-leaning Pay TV News Market.”

Fox has “engaged in an exclusionary scheme to increase and maintain its dominance in the market ... resulting in suppression of competition in that market that harms consumers, competition and Newsmax Broadcasting,” the Boca Raton, Fla., firm said in its federal lawsuit filed in Miami.

Politically conservative news is big business, and Murdoch has mined that lucrative niche since launching Fox News in 1996 with network architect Roger Ailes. Newsmax launched as a

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