Nexstar to acquire Tegna

[mre29 1967]

2 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

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

 

You probably thought that because it was a Belo station before Gannett/Tegna bought that company.

 

2 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

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.

 

I'm still confused as to how Gray is able to acquire WDRB. Is the top-four rule really gone?

 

[channel2 1042]

As somebody who lives in the market where Gannett/TEGNA's baby is, it's so strange to me to hear of TEGNA's reputation for butchering stations in other markets.

[tyrannical bastard 4678]

6 hours ago, channel2 said:

As somebody who lives in the market where Gannett/TEGNA's baby is, it's so strange to me to hear of TEGNA's reputation for butchering stations in other markets.

In DC, Gannett did a number on WUSA long before Tegna was created.

 

Sinclair destroying WJLA after Allbritton made something of them is what brought WUSA back up a few pegs.

[Rusty Muck 4688]

On 8/27/2025 at 4:41 AM, channel2 said:

As somebody who lives in the market where Gannett/TEGNA's baby is, it's so strange to me to hear of TEGNA's reputation for butchering stations in other markets.

General inertia in Cleveland has kept WKYC as the runner-up to WJW because it's not like WEWS is any better. Nor has WOIO-WUAB ever had sustained ratings traction.

 

That being said, I can't wait to see Nexstar use data showing WKYC at dead last and justifying the failed station waiver. It doesn't even need to be true!

[mre29 1967]

In Abilene and San Angelo, Texas, Nexstar owns the CBS affiliates and runs the Mission-owned NBC affiliates, while Tegna owns the Fox affiliates. Does Nexstar really think it's going to control three of the Big Four stations in those markets?

 

(The ABC affiliates are owned by Sinclair. Those markets are screwed.)

 

[Rusty Muck 4688]

9 hours ago, mre29 said:

In Abilene and San Angelo, Texas, Nexstar owns the CBS affiliates and runs the Mission-owned NBC affiliates, while Tegna owns the Fox affiliates. Does Nexstar really think it's going to control three of the Big Four stations in those markets?

Of course Nexstar does! Why else would this merger be happening? They get a monopoly on information in those markets and I bet the weasels over at the statehouse in Austin are excited about that.

Edited August 29, 2025 by Rusty Muck

[tyrannical bastard 4678]

The forthcoming tragedy in Cleveland is when WKYC is integrated into WJW. 

WJW has lived off the fumes of Tribune since 2019 with the set and graphics they were gifted at the last minute, and still exist today.

Yes, they have all of the typical Nexstar garbage like "Remarkable Women" and "Your Local Election Headquarters" but they never got fully Nex-star-red.

 

Other markets like Indianapolis have already shed their Tribune-ness, and even went through different generations of the Nexstar looks (WXIN) since the Nexstar merger.  And it's still hard to believe WISH is still going with ANOTHER active Nexstar look!

 

Hopefully it's not something boring like "Ozarks News First" which repurposes the ABC package on CBS, FOX AND their MyNetwork stations.  Only difference is the station logo bug slapped on it.

Edited August 29, 2025 by tyrannical bastard

[Rusty Muck 4688]

By "integrated", you mean "dismantled". I fully expect a WAKC-style mass firing of all WKYC staff once Brendan Carr rubber stamps this deal in April and all WJW newscasts are simulcast on WKYC.

 

They might as well call themselves NewsNation Cleveland or some garbage brand like that. Will make it easier once Nexstar buys up everything else.

[mre29 1967]

In the markets where Nexstar and Tegna will be "merging" their newsrooms, I hope their competitors (Gray, Hearst, Scripps, Sinclair, the networks, etc.) are increasing the marketing and advertising budgets of their stations to take full advantage of the opportunity they're being handed.

 

Edited August 30, 2025 by mre29

[tyrannical bastard 4678]

5 hours ago, Rusty Muck said:

By "integrated", you mean "dismantled". I fully expect a WAKC-style mass firing of all WKYC staff once Brendan Carr rubber stamps this deal in April and all WJW newscasts are simulcast on WKYC.

 

They might as well call themselves NewsNation Cleveland or some garbage brand like that. Will make it easier once Nexstar buys up everything else.

If there was some kind of regulatory hope to make this deal palatable, make it a condition that a station has to cover Akron and Canton.  

They've been the long suffering portions of this market that are about the size of a mid-sized or small market if they were ever separated.

Akron has used their leverage in the past to condition past needs of WVPX (the old WAKC) to do their bidding.  One of the wins was the short-lived PAX 23 news that WKYC produced for them.

 

Even WBNX is licensed to Akron. 

But that focus waned after they were gifted the Fox Kids network in 1994 and later the WB network when WUAB couldn't handle them with UPN and many sports pre-emptions...

 

But it's a pipe dream at this point since the dismantling of this once proud market is inevitable...thanks Nexstar and the spineless FCC...

Edited August 30, 2025 by tyrannical bastard

[GoldenShine_10 263]

7 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

The forthcoming tragedy in Cleveland is when WKYC is integrated into WJW. 

WJW has lived off the fumes of Tribune since 2019 with the set and graphics they were gifted at the last minute, and still exist today.

Yes, they have all of the typical Nexstar garbage like "Remarkable Women" and "Your Local Election Headquarters" but they never got fully Nex-star-red.

 

Other markets like Indianapolis have already shed their Tribune-ness, and even went through different generations of the Nexstar looks (WXIN) since the Nexstar merger.  And it's still hard to believe WISH is still going with ANOTHER active Nexstar look!

 

Hopefully it's not something boring like "Ozarks News First" which repurposes the ABC package on CBS, FOX AND their MyNetwork stations.  Only difference is the station logo bug slapped on it.

 

My guess is WOIO would move to Lakeside afterward, buying it up on the cheap.

[Rusty Muck 4688]

8 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

If there was some kind of regulatory hope to make this deal palatable, make it a condition that a station has to cover Akron and Canton.  

They've been the long suffering portions of this market that are about the size of a mid-sized or small market if they were ever separated.

Akron has used their leverage in the past to condition past needs of WVPX (the old WAKC) to do their bidding.  One of the wins was the short-lived PAX 23 news that WKYC produced for them.

 

Even WBNX is licensed to Akron. 

But that focus waned after they were gifted the Fox Kids network in 1994 and later the WB network when WUAB couldn't handle them with UPN and many sports pre-emptions...

 

But it's a pipe dream at this point since the dismantling of this once proud market is inevitable...thanks Nexstar and the spineless FCC...

The only real way local news can work in Akron is if they literally go the Patrick Star route of taking the city and push it somewhere else by 50 additional miles.

 

It is just too damn close for Nielsen to carve out a DMA for it. And if they did, Cleveland would plummet from a borderline top 20 market to in the upper 30s or possibly low 40s. Even if S. Bernard Berk had been successful getting WAKR-TV on channel 11, it would have inevitably moved up north.

[Rusty Muck 4688]

12 hours ago, mre29 said:

In the markets where Nexstar and Tegna will be "merging" their newsrooms, I hope their competitors (Gray, Hearst, Scripps, Sinclair, the networks, etc.) are increasing the marketing and advertising budgets of their stations to take full advantage of the opportunity they're being handed.

 

It is far more likely that said companies are already drafting out their exit ramps and preparing to sell out to each other. The networks are living on borrowed time and it's inevitable that they abandon OTA TV altogether.

[tyrannical bastard 4678]

1 hour ago, Rusty Muck said:

It is far more likely that said companies are already drafting out their exit ramps and preparing to sell out to each other. The networks are living on borrowed time and it's inevitable that they abandon OTA TV altogether.

Makes me wonder how much longer stations like WFMJ live on.  They benefited from WKBN selling out to non-local interests and later subsuming WYTV. 

They even sacrificed "The Vindicator" in favor of forging ahead with WFMJ. 

Where else does a station exist that is still owned by it's founding family and NEVER changed their affiliation?

The only major change in their history was moving from their founding Channel 73 to 21 in the 1950s.

 

Then again WEWS is in a similar boat as Scripps founded the station in 1947 and still owns them. 

Their only major change was losing CBS to WJW after Storer bought them, and they've been ABC ever since.

 

By comparison, Nexstar is an upstart from the 1990s that is now the largest broadcaster in America.  If they were founded a decade before, they would be another junk-bonded blip in history like Gillett or Great American.

[Yankees4life 599]

Good God. I hope this doesn't go through. I hate Tegna with a passion but I'm not interested in Nexstar controlling most of the country's stations

[Megatron81 343]

On 8/25/2025 at 4:49 PM, 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.  

 

Yeah, Newsmax is far right there with the liberal groups like Free Press and a few others that don't like media mergers. Where was Newsmax when Nexstar bought Tribune in late 2018/2019 I didn't hear from them when that got approved. Newsmax doesn't care about local news unless they want to buy some channels to put Newsmax 2 on the air or something as Weeters said.    

Edited September 1, 2025 by Megatron81

[l_miro 245]

1 hour ago, Megatron81 said:

 

Yeah, Newsmax is far right there with the liberal groups like Free Press and a few others that don't like media mergers. Where was Newsmax when Nexstar bought Tribune in late 2018/2019 I didn't hear from them when that got approved. Newsmax doesn't care about local news unless they want to buy some channels to put Newsmax 2 on the air or something as Weeters said.    

 

Patently and factually untrue, and easily disproven by spending 5 minutes to look things up. Such as:

 

Newsmax/Ruddy objected to and opposed the Sinclair-Tribune merger in 2017 [ https://www.nexttv.com/news/chris-ruddys-newsmax-slams-sinclair-tribune-merger-167343 ], [https://nypost.com/2018/07/18/conservative-media-boss-told-trump-he-opposed-sinclair-tribune-merger/] on the same grounds he's now objecting the Nexstar-Tegna merger.

Nexstar in 2018 swooped in and structured their merger so it would pass the FCC review. Chris Ruddy then wrote an op-ed in Politico lambasting ownership loopholes, called on the FCC to "communicate a clear national standard - one that respects the ideas of localism, competition and diversity" [ https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2018/09/11/tv-station-mergers-fcc-000697]

 

Quote

Before any more acquisitions and mergers get underway, the FCC needs to communicate a clear national standard—one that respects the ideas of localism, competition and diversity.
 

Congress also has an important role and in the past has intervened to set the standard.

 

My own view is that the FCC should come up with the limitation number, and then Congress should ratify a new set of ownership restrictions. Until then, any new merger approvals should be based on the old limitation of 39 percent. The FCC and Department of Justice should not approve a major television transaction similar to Sinclair-Tribune—one that uses a technicality to blow through the old limits—until a new national standard is ratified

hE's FriEndS wIt TrUmP is a childish argument. Chris Ruddy / Newsmax gave Bill Clinton a glowing, front page interview in 2007 [https://archive.nytimes.com/thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/bill-clinton-gives-interview-to-former-foe/] telling the Palm Beach Post "we consider [Bill Clinton] a friend, and he considers us friends". Bubba dropped by the Newsmax crib later in 2010 while campaigning in the area. Then in 2012 Ruddy traveled with Clinton and his foundation overseas and blogged on the foundation's website and wrote glowing reviews of the foundation's work.

 

Ruddy is not a Republican, nor is he "far right". He's libertarian. Who happens to have some overlap with "Republicans" on a few issues that cause some people's knickers to stretch into a wedgy. 

[Rusty Muck 4688]

Chris Ruddy should be dismissed as a crank just like the Free Press. And if he is a libertarian, then that says a lot about the movement. None of it good.

[Rusty Muck 4688]

Perry's gloating about the merger in this puff piece softball interview with Deadline. He's also confident that Carr and Trusty will give him everything he desires.

 

https://deadline.com/2025/09/nexstar-ceo-perry-sook-tegna-ma-local-media-deregulation-1236508050/

[NowBergen 924]

On 9/3/2025 at 12:23 PM, Rusty Muck said:

Chris Ruddy should be dismissed as a crank just like the Free Press. And if he is a libertarian, then that says a lot about the movement. None of it good.

 

It seems Paramount is buying the "Free Press" and installing Bari Weiss to head up CBS News and change its focus to meet her vision and direction.  RIP CBS News.  Ironic you brought it up.  

[Rusty Muck 4688]

Just now, NowBergen said:

 

It seems Paramount is buying the "Free Press" and installing Bari Weiss to head up CBS News and change its focus to meet her vision and direction.  RIP CBS News.  Ironic you brought it up.  

It makes CBS prime takeover bait for Nexstar... maybe they can use the vacant slots used by CBS's soon-to-be-gone news programming for NewsNation simulcasts.

 

I wish I was kidding.

[AmericanErrorist 267]

At some point during the process involving this deal, the status of WPIX should be resolved (which may well result in the FCC blessing the arrangement).

[Rusty Muck 4688]

12 minutes ago, AmericanErrorist said:

At some point during the process involving this deal, the status of WPIX should be resolved (which may well result in the FCC blessing the arrangement).

I don't see how Mission doesn't cleanly merge into Nexstar at this point. The pretense of needing a sidecar company would be gone altogether.

[Megatron81 343]

On 9/1/2025 at 6:24 PM, l_miro said:

 

Patently and factually untrue, and easily disproven by spending 5 minutes to look things up. Such as:

 

Newsmax/Ruddy objected to and opposed the Sinclair-Tribune merger in 2017 [ https://www.nexttv.com/news/chris-ruddys-newsmax-slams-sinclair-tribune-merger-167343 ], [https://nypost.com/2018/07/18/conservative-media-boss-told-trump-he-opposed-sinclair-tribune-merger/] on the same grounds he's now objecting the Nexstar-Tegna merger.

Nexstar in 2018 swooped in and structured their merger so it would pass the FCC review. Chris Ruddy then wrote an op-ed in Politico lambasting ownership loopholes, called on the FCC to "communicate a clear national standard - one that respects the ideas of localism, competition and diversity" [ https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2018/09/11/tv-station-mergers-fcc-000697]

 

hE's FriEndS wIt TrUmP is a childish argument. Chris Ruddy / Newsmax gave Bill Clinton a glowing, front page interview in 2007 [https://archive.nytimes.com/thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/bill-clinton-gives-interview-to-former-foe/] telling the Palm Beach Post "we consider [Bill Clinton] a friend, and he considers us friends". Bubba dropped by the Newsmax crib later in 2010 while campaigning in the area. Then in 2012 Ruddy traveled with Clinton and his foundation overseas and blogged on the foundation's website and wrote glowing reviews of the foundation's work.

 

Ruddy is not a Republican, nor is he "far right". He's libertarian. Who happens to have some overlap with "Republicans" on a few issues that cause some people's knickers to stretch into a wedgy. 

 

I didn't know that Chris Ruddy was against Nexstar & Tribune merger and also the Sinclair failed merger with Tribune as well. I'll admit I was wrong.

[Rusty Muck 4688]

40 minutes ago, Megatron81 said:

 

I didn't know that Chris Ruddy was against Nexstar & Tribune merger and also the Sinclair failed merger with Tribune as well. I'll admit I was wrong.

It doesn't and won't matter. Ruddy's protests are not going to change anything in this deal and simply allow him the convenience of being "independent" while in reality, he's no different than the rest of the lot.

 

Yeah it's nice that he's against this merger but he cannot change the outcome of a rigged game.