Nexstar to acquire Tegna

[TVLurker 389]

33 minutes ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

 

The argument is that there are online alternatives for local news. I'll wait for you to name me one, because it's absolutely crap. Newspapers were the only other alternative.

It's a bogus argument to be honest. There were online alternatives but the truth is those online alternatives are not any better. Plus they can take an establishment like the LA Weekly and turn it into crap so it's whatever.

[tyrannical bastard 4676]

People like Matt Laubhan and James Spann are proof that they can start a new startup that people will watch.

 

And when this happens to Tegna employees caught in the wave of consolidation, they will thrive in new platforms they join or create.

 

And this will lead to the death of broadcast TV, not just the consolidation that is being ramrodded by companies like Gray and Nexstar.

[Rusty Muck 4688]

7 hours ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

 

The argument is that there are online alternatives for local news. I'll wait for you to name me one, because it's absolutely crap. Newspapers were the only other alternative.

You've never heard of the Baltimore Banner? Or the Texas Tribune? Both are highly regarded and have avoided the pitfalls Gothamist and LAist have encountered because they have money to operate. The Banner has a successful subscription model and has benefitted from the aftereffects of the Sun being owned by Alden and David Smith.

 

There is a non-zero chance that someone, or a collective, finances a startup online news service that tries to acquire all of the KUSA talent Nexstar will blow out, particularly Kyle Clark and the station's investigative unit.

 

Edit: @channel2 also noted to me that the Colorado Sun exists.

Edited August 22, 2025 by Rusty Muck

[NowBergen 924]

32 minutes ago, Rusty Muck said:

You've never heard of the Baltimore Banner? Or the Texas Tribune? Both are highly regarded and have avoided the pitfalls Gothamist and LAist have encountered because they have money to operate. The Banner has a successful subscription model and has benefitted from the aftereffects of the Sun being owned by Alden and David Smith.

 

There is a non-zero chance that someone, or a collective, finances a startup online news service that tries to acquire all of the KUSA talent Nexstar will blow out, particularly Kyle Clark and the station's investigative unit.

 

Edit: @channel2 also noted to me that the Colorado Sun exists.

 

But those are in a few locations.  The local alternative here just publishes press releases, or says an accident happened.  They are NOT substitutes for good reporting across the country.  Many areas are news deserts as Alden and Fortress close papers and slim down the rest, including reporting news 2-3 days after it happens.  The competition Nexstar claims is weaker today than even 5 years ago.  

[Rusty Muck 4688]

1 hour ago, NowBergen said:

 

But those are in a few locations.  The local alternative here just publishes press releases, or says an accident happened.  They are NOT substitutes for good reporting across the country.  Many areas are news deserts as Alden and Fortress close papers and slim down the rest, including reporting news 2-3 days after it happens.  The competition Nexstar claims is weaker today than even 5 years ago.  

The Banner and Tribune show it is entirely possible for those outlets to be on par with their commercial competition. You just need to invest in them because they are NPOs and can only spend what their finances dictate be spent.

 

I would rather throw money into building those outlets up than by fighting a losing battle against a merger 99% guaranteed to be ramrodded through, opposition be damned.

Edited August 22, 2025 by Rusty Muck

[TVLurker 389]

8 hours ago, Rusty Muck said:

The Banner and Tribune show it is entirely possible for those outlets to be on par with their commercial competition. You just need to invest in them because they are NPOs and can only spend what their finances dictate be spent.

 

I would rather throw money into building those outlets up than by fighting a losing battle against a merger 99% guaranteed to be ramrodded through, opposition be damned.

 

I heavily doubt anybody wants to invest time or money in areas where too much competition exists. Nowadays to find success and stability is like a lottery.

[GoldenShine_10 263]

11 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

People like Matt Laubhan and James Spann are proof that they can start a new startup that people will watch.

 

And when this happens to Tegna employees caught in the wave of consolidation, they will thrive in new platforms they join or create.

 

And this will lead to the death of broadcast TV, not just the consolidation that is being ramrodded by companies like Gray and Nexstar.

 

An alternate possibility is that some stations may farm out their weather to these independent startups and abandon their departments. It might be cheaper to send them contracts than to do it in-house.

[10Viewer 362]

Here's hoping that several state attorney general's will oppose this merger. KUSA says that the Colorado Attorney General is concerned about the negative impact. The Colorado AG previously stepped in to oppose the supermarket merger of Kroger and Albertsons, which fell apart. 

 

Personally, I am writing to my state attorney general to ask that they oppose this merger. 

[ABC 7 Denver 1889]

12 hours ago, Rusty Muck said:

You've never heard of the Baltimore Banner? Or the Texas Tribune? Both are highly regarded and have avoided the pitfalls Gothamist and LAist have encountered because they have money to operate. The Banner has a successful subscription model and has benefitted from the aftereffects of the Sun being owned by Alden and David Smith.

 

There is a non-zero chance that someone, or a collective, finances a startup online news service that tries to acquire all of the KUSA talent Nexstar will blow out, particularly Kyle Clark and the station's investigative unit.

 

Edit: @channel2 also noted to me that the Colorado Sun exists.

 

So you're saying the only alternative to video news is print?

5 minutes ago, 10Viewer said:

Here's hoping that several state attorney general's will oppose this merger. KUSA says that the Colorado Attorney General is concerned about the negative impact. The Colorado AG previously stepped in to oppose the supermarket merger of Kroger and Albertsons, which fell apart. 

 

Personally, I am writing to my state attorney general to ask that they oppose this merger. 

 

I know Colorado's AG personally. I'll have a direct conversation with him about this and the KKTV and KKCO swap.

[Weeters 2173]

1 hour ago, TVLurker said:

 

I heavily doubt anybody wants to invest time or money in areas where too much competition exists. Nowadays to find success and stability is like a lottery.

This is why you don't see more of these outlets. I hate to say it, but a lot of these newsrooms, whether they be TV or radio or print, only exist because they were once wildly profitable, not because there's enough news in the area to need three, four, or more newsrooms covering it. They were all covering the same news and trying to win the game of Capitalism.

 

I don't think you'll see more independent voices out there until market conditions exist to justify it, and that won't happen until there's fewer outlets delivering it. It will be smaller, perhaps you could say "right-sized" for the market, because it won't ever make the money TV, radio, and print once did. There will be no massive Channel 7 News Cavern studio with 30 people running around in the background.

 

The weather streamers are, themselves, a late response to an already ongoing trend: Weather streamers like Ryan Hall pull in hundreds of thousands of views just on their forecast discussions, and I've seen their live streams with 150k+ people watching in the middle of the night. Folks, The Weather Channel isn't getting numbers like that, and they have a way more polished broadcast.

 

The future will be independent journalists.

[l_miro 245]

***polled the table at lunch

 

Opinion was that Nexstar is making a spectrum play ("we're thinking of them now as a spectrum company that happens to have broadcast TV"). One of them said he was presented by Nexstar, I guess when they were looking for cash money, that only talked about spectrum, the whole strategy shown was about spectrum, TV only so far as ad revenue/retrans propping up the rest of the operation.

 

refused to say, but the vibe I got was that Nexstar expects to lose network affilaites ala WPLG and is rushing to plan for it because it can be significant.

 

There was a suggestion, rumor or fact not clear but sounded authorative like he knew something, that the networks will be dumping the affiliate model completely and going to their streaming products. The talk revolved around how cable is now bundling Disney+, and ESPN's new app into their TV service etc.

is it going to pass? "their current probabilty gauge is 86% of an approval" but court injuction will more than likely happen. Unsure what the end will look like. Said to watch the spread between the $22 offering and the current stock price. Simply, if Tegna's stock begins to drop away from the $22 floor, traders/market believe the odds of approval are worsening. It doesn't say whether this is passing as sold or passing with caveats.

 

so I had one of my AI minions troll around Nextstar's SEC disclosures. It found that Nexstar had "profound and sustained evolution in the conceptualization of how they refer to their broadcast TV stations", firmly referring to them now as "spectrum assets". Most notably after 2021 but especially the last 2 or 3 years this language has intensified, and is more apparent. 

 

And it mentioned a recent Nexstar presentation to investors where they described themselves as a spectrum company, I can't remember now but a quote of such, I lost the tabs.

 

So Nexstar probably isn't building news operations.

 

Edited August 24, 2025 by l_miro

[l_miro 245]

here's Mark Aitken, President of One Media - Sinclair's arm that co-developed ATSC 3. He's also their Senior VP of Advanced Technology, posted the video below to his Youtube account from ATBA 2025 session on "broadcast internet"

 

Aitken: "pushing for something other than ATSC3 at this point... is dangerous! It risks putting your spectrum up for sale" - he's referring to H2 (the largest Low Power TV owner) petitioning the FCC to let them use 5G broadcast and move away from ATSC altogether. The broadcast incentive auction was a Democrat idea, but it got through with GOP support. Sinclair may not want another repack, and appears focused on datacasting. Fotheringham says at some point how they all can do 1 video channel ota, and reserve the rest of the capacity for whatever they want (datacasting).

Aitken seemed to emphasise "avoiding the big carriers". He implied that VHF is going to get left out of the fun, due to the known issues, especially integrating a VHF antenna into the small devices. Fotheringham brought up how 1 LPTV/Full Power stick that delivers data costs to operate certain amount, the big carriers are paying about the same for each of their towers that cover a limited area - 1-5 miles vs 30-70 miles.

 

 

The biggest reveal for where their strategy may be going was at the end. Fotheringham called this "the last best spectrum consolidation opportunity since Nextel", referring to Nextel rounding up push-to-talk providers, and later selling to Sprint for $32B. Really, consolidating full power (and LPTV's unprotected spectrum) spectrum, the FCC eventually allowing UHF TV spectrum to evolve like they allowed SMR to eventually go 3G, 4G, 5G, all that becoming a high-value infrastructure or ultimately a merger target with, Verizon/ATT/Tmobile buying them out, as broadcasting one-to-many delivers data more efficiently

 

 

 

 

 

 

[l_miro 245]

Newsmax CEO, and friend of President Trump since the mid 1990s, filed a personal letter with the FCC on August 21, 2025, against expanding the ownership limits. He called on the FCC to leave the ownership cap in place at 39%, and remove the UHF discount because it goes "undermines Congress' original intent" --- https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/10821310342987/1

 

Quote

Just this week, in presumed anticipation of the FCC lifting the Horizontal Cap, Nexstar announced its intention to purchase Tegna for $6.8 billion, a 31% premium of Tegna’s average stock price,8 despite the fact that such a transaction would blow past current ownership restrictions. This announcement only underscores that this entire docket likely is more about a payday for a few corporate executives and their shareholders than it is about localism, competition, or viewpoint diversity.

 

He went after Sinclair personally:

 

Quote

As multiple commenters showed,9 the Horizontal Cap sustains localism. The tragi-comic image of dozens of local newscasters at Sinclair-owned stations, reciting the same script verbatim,10 shows how local viewpoints get squelched by corporate editorial policies and previews what the local broadcast landscape would look like if the Commission allowed further consolidation. To call it a “vast wasteland”11 would be generous. Lifting the Horizontal Cap would undermine localism by eliminating competition,12 creating a bland wasteland of a few corporate voices piping in content from New York and LA to local stations.

 

 

 

[Megatron81 343]

Other than the big markets like NYC, LA, Chi etc, where there is 5+ newsrooms mid-sized & small markets will only have 1 or 2 newsrooms in my opinion and that is the reality in my opinion. I don't see Newsmax and the other liberal groups that don't like media mergers is going to stop this merger from happening in my opinion no matter the letter campaign isn't going to change minds. 

[NowBergen 924]

13 minutes ago, Megatron81 said:

Other than the big markets like NYC, LA, Chi etc, where there is 5+ newsrooms mid-sized & small markets will only have 1 or 2 newsrooms in my opinion and that is the reality in my opinion. I don't see Newsmax and the other liberal groups that don't like media mergers is going to stop this merger from happening in my opinion no matter the letter campaign isn't going to change minds. 

Newsmax is far from a liberal group. Far right/MAGA, friend of trump. Wherever Nexstar operates with more than one station, they close down newsrooms and consolidate.  The same news is broadcast on multiple stations.  Local newsroom voices get deleted. That’s not good.  

[10Viewer 362]

2 hours ago, Megatron81 said:

Other than the big markets like NYC, LA, Chi etc, where there is 5+ newsrooms mid-sized & small markets will only have 1 or 2 newsrooms in my opinion and that is the reality in my opinion. I don't see Newsmax and the other liberal groups that don't like media mergers is going to stop this merger from happening in my opinion no matter the letter campaign isn't going to change minds. 

 

Tampa, Denver and Cleveland aren't 'mid-sized' markets

[mre29 1967]

1 hour ago, 10Viewer said:

Tampa, Denver and Cleveland aren't 'mid-sized' markets

 

 All three are in the top 20 (#s 11, 17, and 19) and should be considered large markets. Perhaps we should consider NY, LA, and Chicago very large markets.

 

[nathannah 2792]

3 hours ago, NowBergen said:

Newsmax is far from a liberal group. Far right/MAGA, friend of trump. Wherever Nexstar operates with more than one station, they close down newsrooms and consolidate.  The same news is broadcast on multiple stations.  Local newsroom voices get deleted. That’s not good.  

They're also probably thinking of where to get wire video too, and the talent pipeline which local stations provide a lot of. Web media like RSBN can only be a few places at once and Twitter/TikTok influencers are not neutral reporters, so if their local competitors overprice local wire video and stick employees with onerous NDAs, then that puts Newsmax at a disadvantage. That's one way for a regular FTC to get some treasury revenue from an anti-trust suit, but that won't happen here, so Newsmax will get some conditions to be happy.

[Rusty Muck 4688]

Chris Ruddy can be bought for the right price, that's how they all operate. I can see Nexstar striking a content-sharing deal with Newsmax and clears their opinion channel on Nexstar station muxes. Watch as he drops his objections like yesterday's potatoes.

 

With no functioning FTC and DOJ, what difference does it make?

 

[tyrannical bastard 4676]

47 minutes ago, Rusty Muck said:

Chris Ruddy can be bought for the right price, that's how they all operate. I can see Nexstar striking a content-sharing deal with Newsmax and clears their opinion channel on Nexstar station muxes. Watch as he drops his objections like yesterday's potatoes.

 

With no functioning FTC and DOJ, what difference does it make?

 

Sinclair used to have a Newsmax widget on their websites.

[Weeters 2173]

I wonder what Newsmax's goal is,here? I can assure you that they do not care, in the slightest, for "localism" or local news.

 

Are they running interference for Sinclair, who was alleged to also be gunning for Tegna?

Do they think this is sucking up to Trump?

Or, maybe, they want local news to fail (and soon) so these companies have to liquidate their assets, giving Newsmax a chance to gobble up some stations so they can really capture the 55-dead demo. No more diginet trees for them! They can get a nice full-power signal to broadcast Newsmax 2 on.

 

Whatever it is, it is not caring so much about local news being so important.

[Rusty Muck 4688]

Nexstar is now blatantly starting to curry favor to Trump, with The Hill unironically reporting on a post in Truth Social, purportedly written by Trump, where he allegedly wants to "revoke the licenses" for NBC News and ABC News after Brendan Carr pantsed David Ellison over CBS News a few weeks ago.

 

Inasmuch as people claim The Hill is "unbiased" there was zero mention about how their parent company owns a massive chunk of NBC and ABC affiliates and seeks even more through their upcoming ramrodded purchase of Tegna. This is absolutely insidious.

 

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5468568-trump-threatens-broadcast-networks-in-late-night-social-media-posts/

[tyrannical bastard 4676]

Remember when Gannett was a good company that ran quality stations?

It may have been posted here before, but this is a piece that WTCN (now KARE) produced after taking over the station from Metromedia, and all of the investment they made in the people, product and making them a factor in the market during NBC's rise from the basement in the early 80s...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR79IZquMYo

 

Fast forward to now, and all of the damage Tegna has done, and that was before Mike Steib took over.

It's like they torched everything to make these stations easy targets to be subsumed by their competition.  Failing station waiver material perhaps?

Things like this SHOULD have factored into transactions so that companies don't torch their assets to make them qualify as "failing" or under the limits.

But here we are now...

 

[NowBergen 924]

1 hour ago, Rusty Muck said:

 

 

Inasmuch as people claim The Hill is "unbiased" there was zero mention about how their parent company owns a massive chunk of NBC and ABC affiliates and seeks even more through their upcoming ramrodded purchase of Tegna. This is absolutely insidious.

 

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5468568-trump-threatens-broadcast-networks-in-late-night-social-media-posts/

 

The Hill, historically center right, was unbiased.  Since bought be Nexstar, they have made a far right turn, often serving up propaganda or bias supporting this regime.  It's not the same objective source as it used to be.  Often they just prevent one side, trump's side, which is far from unbiased.  It is a shame.  But it is a watch out in terms of how Nexstar creates coverage that they subtly curry favor.

[tyrannical bastard 4676]

One of the nuggets that I deduced from the Block-Gray paperwork is that WHAS is the 4th place station in Louisville, with WLKY leading, WDRB in second, and WAVE in third.

 

I always thought WHAS was better (and one of the better Tegna stations) unless Tegna REALLY drove them into the ground.

 

It's going to be interesting to see when the Nexstar paperwork comes out and they make their case on how they can acquire these stations with little regulatory opposition.