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stations are going into a holding company owned by Standard Media to be overseen by their CEO. Parkin has also reneged on buying Standard Media (KLKN, WLNE, KBSI, WDKA), and Sinclair stations (WVTV, WICS, WICD, KHQA, KTVO) that was announced in July 2025. Allegedly, his financing fell through (bridge loans, operating income for 3 months post closing per FCC rules, refi into a permanent deb), and Standard Media is said to have no interest, they want out asap. If he was 'warehousing' the stations the lenders probably balked at giving him money for a bridge or permanent refi

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Cox (Apollo) gets roped into this and partners with Standard General to bring in Cox itself to this cluster of ownership madness.

Nexstar has responded to the TRO but the filling is under seal. We may or may not find out what they argued, or if we do, it will be heavily redacted. California et. al. filed copies of Nexstar SEC disclosures where the company told investors almost all of the $300 mil. in synergies will be due to higher retrans fees Tegna stations will be collecting - it is customary for a retrans contract to have a clause that automatically increases the retrans fee to bring it up to par with what the new owner receives. Nexstar counsel argued over email with the deputy AG, that they're bringing the case up at midnight, asking for a 3pm meeting, and mentions other plaintiffs - the other states - having had access to evidence she participated in regulatory review for a year, none of them raised issues with Nexstar privately. He's asking her why they waited so long. In the memorandum Plaintiff States assert they contacted Nexstar on 3/10 to work on timing and were ignored He mentions the TRO was filed by California claiming immediate harm but the FCC has an order preventing retrans fees from increasing until November. And that the relief California wants would be harmful to the company. TRO will probably fail as local rules require immediate harm, plaintiffs were aware of evidence for months thus no emergency Now California et al have till 3/26 to respond

There is only one appropriate response to this development...

I'll just put my two cents in. The misanthropic read—the honest one—is that this isn’t some grand betrayal of the public trust. It’s a system behaving exactly as designed. Maximize shareholder value, minimize cost, maintain the illusion of service. If local journalism was truly indispensable to the public at scale, it would have found a sustainable model by now. Instead, it survives in pockets—nonprofits, independents, the occasional stubborn newsroom—while the bulk of the industry becomes a content distribution network with a nostalgic costume. So, the Nexstar / Tegna deal isn’t a shocking turning point. It’s just another mile marker on a road we’ve been on for years, decades even. Fewer owners. Thinner newsrooms. Louder branding about “serving communities” paired with quieter layoffs and more syndicated filler. And the punchline? Most people won’t notice. Not really. The broadcasts will still look like news. The graphics will still spin and be flashy (or not). The anchors will still smile with that practiced urgency. The difference—the slow erosion of actual local accountability—doesn’t announce itself. It just… accumulates. Until one day, something really important happens in a town, and there’s nobody left to cover it who actually lives there. But hey—great margins.

Now Jake Tapper is broadcasting from his office!

KUSA Just showed the Nexstar Copyright information at the end of 9NEWS@3, it has begun. The last Tegna copyright aired at Noon... And unfortunately I didn't capture it..

An insane amount of technical errors. On the debut day, they were in the middle of a live report on a fire that killed 3 kids and the automation dumped them out into a 3-minute commercial break at 4:03p … right after the show had just started. They came back, apologized, and had to start all over again. Double boxes randomly showed up during a weather hit (the news anchor was looking down and had no clue he was on camera), no audio off the top of the newscast, going to black for 30ish seconds, reporters who clearly don’t know they’re live on air (one guy was chit-chatting with a state trooper passing him in a parking lot as he was being introduced and the anchor had to introduce him a second time to get his attention), etc. They’re using an extremely condensed version of the new open that seems unnecessarily rushed and they are also alternating the same three transitions/wipes over and over and over again before each story. It has just been really, really bad quality from a station that has never had widespread issues like this before.