Nexstar to acquire Tegna

[MidwestTV 1358]

4 hours ago, MarkAnimates said:

Is Nexstar trying to become a mega-corporation at this point??????

I have a STRONG feeling that this will violate multiple FCC regulations/rules.

Nexstar has been a mega corp.

 

What really sucks for Tegna employees is PTO. Tegna had probably the most generous PTO in the industry. Nexstar on the other hand...they'd ban PTO if they could.

[GoldenShine_10 263]

On 8/10/2025 at 12:03 PM, mer764KCTV5 said:

I wonder what would happen in Kansas City and St. Louis is Nexstar decides to buy Tegna?

 

For context: In St. Louis, Tegna owns NBC affiliate KSDK Ch. 5 in St. Louis,

...But doesn't own any stations in Kansas City.

However Nexstar owns FOX affiliate KTVI in St. Louis in a duopoly with CW station KPLR which is a sister station to Kansas City's Fox affiliate, WDAF-TV.

 

St. Louis would have a triopoly, so under current rules one would have to be sold. Courts would take a serious look there given the market size and the fact it would leave only one other newsroom (Gray's KMOV)

 

I think the fact it leaves only one other news-producing station would be a major sticking point there. It's not the worst issue (talking to you, Scranton - I see no way WNEP doesn't get sold there on antitrust grounds) but it is concerning. If there were 2 news producers left, they would probably be able to absorb such by turning off KPLR.

[LiveFromHere 4]

Markets with at least a Tegna/Nexstar duopoly, if not a triopoly or quadopoly between them: Ft. Smith, Little Rock, Sacramento, San Diego, Denver, Hartford, Washington, D.C., Tampa/St. Pete, Indianapolis, Des Moines, Quad Cities, New Orleans, Grand Rapids, St. Louis, Buffalo, Charlotte, Greensboro, Cleveland, Columbus, Portland, Ore., Scranton-Wilkes Barre, Harrisburg-Lancaster-York, Knoxville, Memphis, Abilene, Austin, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Houston, Midland-Odessa, San Angelo, Tyler, Tex., Norfolk.

 

This deal doesn’t make financial sense if you buy these stations and keep separate news departments running. Most, if not all, of these markets stand to lose a news operation.

[Megatron81 343]

I wonder if WOTV could be the sole ABC station in West Michigan if Nexstar could take ABC away when they have to sell WZZM could they do the shell and Mission gets WZZM. I'm thinking that WZZM is a top 4 station and would have to be sold.

[MichiganNewsGraphicsJunkie 1158]

3 minutes ago, Megatron81 said:

I wonder if WOTV could be the sole ABC station in West Michigan if Nexstar could take ABC away when they have to sell WZZM could they do the shell and Mission gets WZZM. I'm thinking that WZZM is a top 4 station and would have to be sold.

If you read above, that may not even matter... Gray is getting away with it in multiple markets with the Allen purchase... They'll either merge or sell... But may not be forced to.. I posted and hid the same thing a few days ago and was heckled to death about it

[l_miro 245]

On 8/9/2025 at 5:28 PM, Weeters said:

I'm not sure a strongly-worded letter written by Newsmax is going to sway many opinions in Congress and at the FCC. What ulterior motives could Newsmax have for wanting a bunch of full-power TV station licenses to be available at low cost? 

 

Keep in mind, the FCC's mission is to regulate the wireless spectrum, not business and commerce. The cap exists to prevent a company from monopolizing available, finite radio spectrum. The stupid simple solution to this issue (which I suspect we might see play out if this merger is attempted and fails) is to make that work differently.

 

Sinclair and Nexstar have been pushing ATSC 3.0 datacasting quite heavily, to the point that datacasting is often the only time ATSC 3 comes up in their quarterly and annual investor reports. All they need to do is make the argument that, because the spectrum can now be used for multiple purposes, they are no longer "television stations" but "data transmitters". Multiple stations sharing one transmitter is already happening (both "sides" of ATSC3 lighthouses, post-repack channel sharing), and the FCC has not really addressed the multiple questions this raises. If everyone is on one frequency anyways, what exactly is the FCC regulating?

 

The next step is to decouple the transmitters from the broadcasters themselves (hey remember EdgeBeam Wireless?). The UK has been doing this since 1997, and I believe most, if not all, of the transmitters in the country are owned by Arqiva. The UK Government still regulates the use of the "Muxes" on these transmitters, but the US has a pesky "Constitution" that would probably make that difficult for our government to do. It would likely end up with "let the free market decide", and pitched as "anybody" can now operate a "TV station" over these transmitters, as long as there is available bandwidth, and you can pay for it. Not enough transmitters? Oh well! Should have formed a consortium and bid on the spectrum that was freed up when every television broadcaster consolidated onto 3-4 frequencies in each market.

 

We're kind of already doing this. What are cellular networks if not wireless data providers, available to anyone who can afford a phone and the subscription to use it? We don't regulate what websites can be accessed on cellular networks, so why would we regulate datacasting differently?

 

Something is going to give, eventually. Whether it be the scenario above, or the FCC/congress/etc. just throwing up their hands and saying it's pointless when all this is available online, anyways.

 

Could be hedging on another broadcast spectrum auction. Broadcasters initially asked ~$80B in the incentive auction last time but didn't get that, they probably hope mobile operators will fight for what would be the last chunks of low band spectrum this time. If not, fight to the death to make ATSC 3.0 mandatory. Then paid 4K OTA encryption, datacasting, selling subchannels, selling user data since tracking is built in - possible scenario given the hard push for encryption, and how they attacked Lon, from Lon.TV, and a few others who commented to the FCC against encrypting OTA signals, calling them paid astroturfers.

 

Also, the FCC just had it's spectrum auction authority renewed to 2034. They must find no less than 800MHz to auction off, but only 3.98-4.2GHz (200Mhz) must be auctioned by July 2027. The military's 3.1-3.45GHz is blocked along with 1000Mhz in 7.4-8.4GHz. So that leaves a possibility they'll go down to more desirable spectrum - broadcast ch 20 to 36 would be 96Mhz. FCC can do another repack - keep UHF 14 to 17, set 18 as a guardband, auction 19 to 36. That leaves 4 x 6Mhz or 24Mhz which could fit 9-15 4K channels or 15-30 1080p channels in a high power high tower setup, more if they do an SFN.

 

My people in Bulgaria have "The Multiplex", handled similarly to Britain - operated by the former government-owned telekom now private Vivacom. Whoever wants a channel on it has to apply, not sure how but I think it is first come first serve. It's a nationwide DVB-T SFN on 3x8MHz non-contingent channels, the government-owned stations on their MUX of 1x8Mhz with 4 channels on it and MUX2 for the commercial stations, 6 stations currently, 11 before that. The entire mux is also up on Eutelsat-33F

 

 

 

[Rusty Muck 4688]

This merger goes through as-is, and Nexstar not only gets duops in Seattle and Atlanta, but the junior station (KONG and WATL, respectively) will become CW owned-stations.

 

That's not really good news for Gray, which unless something drastic happens (like a purchase of Cox Media), will potentially wind up with a full-power duop of independent stations in their home market.

[Drew 158]

CW just signed with KUNS to become the CW station in 2023 are they going to break the contract for KONG to take CW? 

[Rusty Muck 4688]

4 hours ago, Drew said:

CW just signed with KUNS to become the CW station in 2023 are they going to break the contract for KONG to take CW? 

Yes, and it wouldn't surprise me if it's written into the group deal with Sinclair that Nexstar has the right to yank the affiliation on any stations. WUAB was bundled into Gray's groupwide CW contract and it didn't prevent them from losing the CW to WBNX.

[Megatron81 343]

On 8/11/2025 at 4:23 PM, MichiganNewsGraphicsJunkie said:

If you read above, that may not even matter... Gray is getting away with it in multiple markets with the Allen purchase... They'll either merge or sell... But may not be forced to.. I posted and hid the same thing a few days ago and was heckled to death about it

 

Thinking about it WOTV Sat & WZZM Sat can be merged you could make The CW a DT1 on either WOTV or WZZM as The CW has always been DT2 since the launched in 2006.

[Recovering Producer 410]

This week on Tegna acquisition Love Island… A hot new bombshell enters the villa… 

 

WSJ: Sinclair proposes merger with Tegna

Edited August 19, 2025 by Recovering Producer

[Dave Lampstein 287]

WSJ is reporting Sinclair has approached TEGNA with a merger offer. 
 

https://www.wsj.com/business/deals/tv-station-owner-sinclair-proposes-merger-with-tegna-4bd3bb86
 

Let the speculation commence!

[MidwestTV 1358]

I feel really bad for Tegna employees being whipped around like this. Plenty of them were alarmed enough about Nexstar.

[tyrannical bastard 4676]

34 minutes ago, Dave Lampstein said:

WSJ is reporting Sinclair has approached TEGNA with a merger offer. 
 

https://www.wsj.com/business/deals/tv-station-owner-sinclair-proposes-merger-with-tegna-4bd3bb86
 

Let the speculation commence!

The question is, who is more desperate...Tegna or Sinclair?

Maybe if Tegna takes control of Sinclair, it will all come crashing down.  Unless there is a divine intervention, Sinclair will never get control of Tegna (or any more stations for that matter)...

Edited August 19, 2025 by tyrannical bastard

[newsteam13 417]

Oh, shitfuck! Another invasion of the Sin-crapola in Denver!

First in 2018, Sinclair approached the Tribune stations, who were parent companies of CW2 KWGN and FOX31 KDVR, to merge with them. That merger was rejected and merged with Nexstar instead.

Now THIS YEAR? Sinclair is about to invade Denver again. Sin-crapola is approaching Tegna, who is the parent company of NBC9 KUSA, to merge with their stations.

It could get worse in Washington DC. Tegna-owned CBS9 WUSA could merge with ABC7 WJLA, which sinclair already owns.

[Georgie56 3661]

It’s official.

[tyrannical bastard 4676]

45 minutes ago, Georgie56 said:

It’s official.

This is going to be a regulation nightmare.  Regardless of any forthcoming FCC action, antitrust issues are going to force some divestitures for sure.

 

I knew the Sinclair Tegna deal was too good to be true... Now who's going to put Sinclair out of their misery?

Edited August 19, 2025 by tyrannical bastard

[mre29 1967]

26 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

This is going to be a regulation nightmare.  Regardless of any forthcoming FCC action, antitrust issues are going to force some divestitures for sure.

 

To the Speculatron!

 

[GraphicsMan 345]

Oh god no this is gonna force the networks to get involved I’m afraid.

 

The number of markets that will be affected and layoffs will be astronomical. 

Edited August 19, 2025 by GraphicsMan

[MD TV 389]

Here's Perry Sook on CNBC explaining the merger:

 

[tyrannical bastard 4676]

1 hour ago, GraphicsMan said:

Oh god no this is gonna force the networks to get involved I’m afraid.

 

The number of markets that will be affected and layoffs will be astronomical. 

It's going to take a spinoff company and a blind trust to pull this off, at the very least.  The overlap licenses will go into a blind trust and Nexstar will have to create a spinoff company to run the excess stations.  That's if that's even legal given the current and future regulations about to go down.

 

If National Amusements controlled both Viacom and CBS before and after their (re) merger....

 

Still, the networks are going to have their say, especially with Nexstar exercising every opportunity to put the CW on their own airwaves. Maybe they'll take their ball and go home like they did in Atlanta. 

 

Places like DC and Dallas aren't going to be a major issue since the Nexstar moves will be of minimal market share. 

Markets like Indianapolis, Cleveland, Little Rock, Columbus, St. Louis, Harrisburg, Scranton, San Diego, Tampa, New Orleans, Des Moines, Charlotte, Greensboro, Norfolk and some others raise market share issues to the point of total market control. 

 

We could see a quintopoly in Little Rock and Nexstar owning ALL 3 major stations in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre with WNEP joining the fold.

[Recovering Producer 410]

39 minutes ago, MD TV said:

Here's Perry Sook on CNBC explaining the merger:

 

 

I  have nothing of substance to say that hasn't already been said... but the fact the CEO of the largest operator of TV stations in the United States is wearing an AirPod (from one of the big tech companies he's bemoaning) and not a real IFB for a network TV talkback... 

[Big Rollo Smokes 324]

The one market affected here I have an interest in is Columbus.

 

Just like in all the other markets, a merger of the WCMH and WBNS-TV newsrooms is concerning. I know of a couple of on-air folks at the 10TV morning show who just got there within the last three months, and recently they've been promoting the return of Jeff Hogan like crazy. Now, it's a wait and see game for everyone at both 10TV and NBC4.

 

Regarding facilities: Both WCMH and the WBNS stations' respective studios are more than 70 years old, and are four miles apart. Channels 4 and 10, and 97.1 also share the candelabra tower adjacent to the WBNS studios. It would make sense that WCMH make the move down Olentangy River Road to 770 Twin Rivers Drive (WBNS) for that reason alone. I also believe Tegna made some upgrades to the 'BNS plant in recent years, not including moving radio in there. Which brings us to...

 

...Nexstar will also be adding Tegna's only two radio stations, WBNS (AM) and WBNS-FM along with WBNS-TV. Both are in the sports format, but WBNS-FM is mostly live-and-local sports talk, and is the flagship of Ohio State football and men's hoops. The AM side runs syndicated sports talk (currently ESPN Radio) and operates on a graveyard signal, albeit with a vintage Blaw-Knox tower.

Edited August 19, 2025 by Big Rollo Smokes

[GoldenShine_10 263]

2 minutes ago, Big Rollo Smokes said:

The one market affected here I have an interest in is Columbus.

 

Just like in all the other markets, a merger of the WCMH and WBNS-TV newsrooms is concerning. I know of a couple of on-air folks at the 10TV morning show who just got there within the last three months, and recently they've been promoting the return of Jeff Hogan like crazy. Now, it's a wait and see game for everyone at both 10TV and NBC4.

 

Regarding facilities: Both WCMH and the WBNS stations' respective studios are more than 70 years old, and are four miles apart. Channels 4 and 10, and 97.1 also share the candelabra tower adjacent to the WBNS studios. It would make sense that WCMH make the move down Olentangy River Road to 770 Twin Rivers Drive (WBNS) for that reason alone. I also believe Tegna made some upgrades to the 'BNS plant in recent years, not including moving radio in there.

 

Nexstar will also be adding Tegna's only two radio stations, WBNS (AM) and WBNS-FM along with WBNS-TV. Both are in the sports format, but WBNS-FM is mostly live-and-local sports talk, and is the flagship of Ohio State football and men's hoops. The AM side runs syndicated sports talk (currently ESPN Radio) and operates on a graveyard signal, albeit with a vintage Blaw-Knox tower.

 

Since neither Nexstar nor Tegna currently have a duopoly there, with the recent court ruling, as long as market share isn't extreme they can actually merge them cleanly.

[Dave Lampstein 287]

I’m impressed — the CNBC host (kinda) did his homework. As a former TEGNA employee, I’m not sure how to feel about this. It wasn’t corporate ‘dictating the news’ like Sinclair, but their attempts to reimagine local stations and micromanage operations mostly flopped in market after market. My friends at mid- and small-market Nexstar stations seem relatively content, while those in bigger markets are less so, though that usually comes down to local management more than corporate.

 

I'm curious how they're going to mesh together two somewhat unstable news operations in DC...