Nexstar to acquire Tegna

[GoldenShine_10 263]

1 hour ago, GodfreyGR said:

There's a good deal of extremely wishful thinking about courts undoing things, divestitures, etc. For the sake of the good people panicking about whether or not they will have a job when the dust settles, I pray to God you are all correct and some Hail Mary materializes. However, the reality of those Christmas wishes coming true is probably slim to none, and slim has left the building. Who else was lining up with a serious offer to buy out TEGNA? Should Denver, and Portland, and St. Louis have the mega-opolys that they now will? I don't think so. However, this has been a snowball effect of exceptions.

 

There are more companies getting out of the business than into it. It sucks, but its reality. Revenue keeps going down, and it's becoming downright near impossible to operate as an independent owner. The quote that Chuck Peters of Gazette said when they sold KCRG to Gray for $100 Million: "we realized that we did all we could as a single television station with the business...". Indeed, as the big get bigger, the little guy sold out while the getting was good. It's really hard to say no to a big pay day when you were getting really good at barely getting by.

 

I know that many have enjoyed blaming Evil Orange Man for all of this, and the current administration is owed their fair share of the blame; but the buildup to a sale like Tegna has been percolating for some time. Companies were allowed to buy market competitors in the 2000's using failing station waivers or used LMA's to operate and control other newsrooms. Precedent was set. Exception after exception after exception was made through many Presidential administrations, FCC boards, and DOJs. Sure some raised opposition, sounded a cautionary alarm, but what did that do? Not a darned thing.

 

Perhaps more so than wishing for a miracle in the courts, wish for a time machine to stop the snowball from becoming an avalanche.

 

The FCC and DOJ cannot get past the law though. All other deals were done within the framework of the law (or denied in a few cases). This is a blatant disregard of laws set by Congress.

[NowBergen 924]

1 minute ago, GoldenShine_10 said:

 

The FCC and DOJ cannot get past the law though. All other deals were done within the framework of the law (or denied in a few cases). This is a blatant disregard of laws set by Congress.

 

When did this administration care about laws and Congress?  That is a contributor.  This smells of a back room deal with the administration putting its finger on the scale like never before.  

[GoldenShine_10 263]

6 minutes ago, NowBergen said:

 

When did this administration care about laws and Congress?  That is a contributor.  This smells of a back room deal with the administration putting its finger on the scale like never before.  

 

But other courts, like the 9th Circuit, would step in - and as we saw with the tariffs, even the Supreme Court can stop them if this is a blatant violation of federal law.

[nomadcowatbk 188]

2 hours ago, GodfreyGR said:

There are more companies getting out of the business than into it. It sucks, but its reality. Revenue keeps going down, and it's becoming downright near impossible to operate as an independent owner. The quote that Chuck Peters of Gazette said when they sold KCRG to Gray for $100 Million: "we realized that we did all we could as a single television station with the business...". Indeed, as the big get bigger, the little guy sold out while the getting was good. It's really hard to say no to a big pay day when you were getting really good at barely getting by.

So why hasn't Mizzou sold KOMU?

[GodfreyGR 812]

7 minutes ago, nomadcowatbk said:

So why hasn't Mizzou sold KOMU?

1) Mizzou is a non-profit university, so they don't need to worry as much about raking in the cash and meeting quotas to keep the stocks up. The joys of being a land-grant research institution!

2) That station is part of why the Missouri School of Journalism is one of the top journalism programs out there, and a huge draw for prospective students by getting to train in an actual newsroom (not discounting campus journalism programs- Mizzou carved out their niche by having KOMU).

3) Who says they wouldn't sell if the right offer came along?

[TVLurker 389]

What the fuck?

 

These vultures with the help of the corrupt government just swooped down and caught their prey.

 

How can people be comfortable with this new norm?

[JRyan 694]

It makes one wonder how it is that a media company cannot exist unless they literally break the law as currently written (or a thinly veiled "waiver").  Either the law itself needs to be changed in some way or the company is conducting itself in a manner that is predatory and inherently illegal.  I think the answer is clearly the latter.

 

Last time I checked, companies not constantly looking to buy up smaller ones seem to be running well on average.  Hearst comes to mind as a great example.  Companies that are not being run well is usually the fault of poor management that leads to bad decisions and outcomes - not market conditions.  Is there a decline in TV?  Absolutely.  But consolidation does nothing but pour gasoline on the trend away from linear TV.  It fosters more mistrust by the public.

 

As it currently stands, a small business owner cannot simply just launch or buy a station - except very rarely.  Why?  Not because TV is actually unprofitable.  Nexstar or a similar sized company will stop at nothing to block out any small competitor.  If you own all but one viable station in a given market, the huge disproportionate market share means that the small contender will face untold opposition just to exist.  And even the best sales team will have a tough time trying to sell spots to clients for a station that only gets 20-30% of the market share.  Any business looking to advertise is going to go to the one that has the larger reach that offer prices deliberately priced low to put further pressure on its competition.

 

This is a wake-up call to all that the decades long trend of weakened ownership rules needs to be seriously addressed.  Markets in general should be filled with small business owners (single market contenders).

 

Indeed, the trend of meteorologists successfully moving toward independent streaming is a sign that people do not want more corporate control of the media they consume.  People want trustworthy media that is responsive and accountable to its audience - and most usually only a company with true local ties to the market is going to care.

[AmericanErrorist 267]

7 hours ago, jumbojoe92 said:

I gotta think one of the networks will say something over time on this - but basically they've just built and beefed up their own network - and are doing it the wrong way in doing so. Hate this for several local voices and jobs to be lost now because of this.

That time would be the next contract renewal and not before.

[DENDude 259]

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..  

 

 

[nomadcowatbk 188]

58 minutes ago, GodfreyGR said:

1) Mizzou is a non-profit university, so they don't need to worry as much about raking in the cash and meeting quotas to keep the stocks up. The joys of being a land-grant research institution!

it's also subject to state funding, although KOMU receives nothing from tax dollars or tuition, they might face pressure from the GOP supermajority to sell to Nexstar or Sinclair

[ABC 7 Denver 1889]

58 minutes ago, JRyan said:

It makes one wonder how it is that a media company cannot exist unless they literally break the law as currently written (or a thinly veiled "waiver").  Either the law itself needs to be changed in some way or the company is conducting itself in a manner that is predatory and inherently illegal.  I think the answer is clearly the latter.

 

Last time I checked, companies not constantly looking to buy up smaller ones seem to be running well on average.  Hearst comes to mind as a great example.  Companies that are not being run well is usually the fault of poor management that leads to bad decisions and outcomes - not market conditions.  Is there a decline in TV?  Absolutely.  But consolidation does nothing but pour gasoline on the trend away from linear TV.  It fosters more mistrust by the public.

 

As it currently stands, a small business owner cannot simply just launch or buy a station - except very rarely.  Why?  Not because TV is actually unprofitable.  Nexstar or a similar sized company will stop at nothing to block out any small competitor.  If you own all but one viable station in a given market, the huge disproportionate market share means that the small contender will face untold opposition just to exist.  And even the best sales team will have a tough time trying to sell spots to clients for a station that only gets 20-30% of the market share.  Any business looking to advertise is going to go to the one that has the larger reach that offer prices deliberately priced low to put further pressure on its competition.

 

This is a wake-up call to all that the decades long trend of weakened ownership rules needs to be seriously addressed.  Markets in general should be filled with small business owners (single market contenders).

 

Indeed, the trend of meteorologists successfully moving toward independent streaming is a sign that people do not want more corporate control of the media they consume.  People want trustworthy media that is responsive and accountable to its audience - and most usually only a company with true local ties to the market is going to care.

 

You highlighted what I've been shouting from rooftop for years.

[tyrannical bastard 4676]

Realistically, the only undoing of this deal is any reparations of laid off staffers when this deal was ruled illegal, and if it takes down Nexstar, so be it.

 

Nexstar f-ed around..

 

They'll find out one day.

[DucNguyen0131 65]

Ah screw that! My local station WXIA is about to end with the new Nexstar endtag!

[BrakusJPS 7]

On 3/19/2026 at 7:38 PM, Archiva said:

Nexstar is going to divest WTHR, WAVY, KTVD, WUPL, KNWA and WCTX, per the FCC document. 
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-267A1.pdf

 

 

 

Nexstar divesting WAVY here in Portsmouth (Norfolk) VA? That seems very odd, considering WAVY has been the market's news leader for decades at this point. I kinda wonder what Nexstar sees in WVEC that they don't in WAVY.

[Nelson R. 585]

29 minutes ago, DucNguyen0131 said:

Ah screw that! My local station WXIA is about to end with the new Nexstar endtag!

WCNC did at 6pm.

 

I didn’t capture the last Tegna end tag for WCNC either but will try to on demand.

 

I guess CW will end up on WATL after all (and KONG in Seattle).

[norcalTVfan 58]

51 minutes ago, DucNguyen0131 said:

Ah screw that! My local station WXIA is about to end with the new Nexstar endtag!

At risk of violating any list rules, KREM aired the Nexstar tag at 5:30 on KSKN. 

[J.W. Rodriguez 28]

My YouTube buddy, Scott Allen Brown, has posted a video montage with the final WPMT broadcast using the tag with the Tegna logo and the first with the Nexstar one.

 

 

Edited March 21 by J.W. Rodriguez

[AaronQ 309]

From NC Attorney General Jeff Jackson about the merger being approved, and filed an emergency motion with the other state AGs. 

 

[GraphicsMan 345]

Can the emergency motion be denied. Sorry it can be denied, so will see what the courts do.

Edited March 21 by GraphicsMan

[GraphicsMan 345]

1 hour ago, Nelson R. said:

WCNC did at 6pm.

 

I didn’t capture the last Tegna end tag for WCNC either but will try to on demand.

 

I guess CW will end up on WATL after all (and KONG in Seattle).

I’m checking on Greensboro and WFMY.

[mre29 1967]

48 minutes ago, AaronQ said:

From NC Attorney General Jeff Jackson about the merger being approved, and filed an emergency motion with the other state AGs. 

 

For those of you who would prefer not going to Xitter just to read the entire post, here it is:

 

Quote

Update: Yesterday, we filed a lawsuit to block the biggest TV merger in history (Nexstar + Tegna).

 

That sparked a sprint by Nexstar to try to close the deal before a court could stop them.

 

Less than 24 hours after we filed, USDOJ reportedly dropped its investigation, the FCC waived the rules that would normally block a merger this big, and Nexstar announced the deal was closed. Their CEO thanked the FCC chairman by name.

 

Not so fast.

 

This morning, I joined a group of AGs and filed an emergency motion asking the court to freeze this merger to give it time to hear our case.

 

This merger deserves a full hearing before Nexstar starts raising TV prices on almost half the families in North Carolina and laying off reporters at local news stations across the state. 

 

This isn't speculation. Nexstar told its investors it expects to make roughly $135 million a year from charging higher fees to your cable and satellite provider, and another $165 million from "synergies" - their word for laying people off.

 

And the law is on our side. When a merger gives one company this much control over a market, federal antitrust law presumes it's illegal. In every single NC market affected by this deal, the concentration blows past the legal threshold. It's not a close call, and that's probably why they tried to skip the part where a judge  weighs in.

 

Our emergency motion was just filed. I'll keep you posted.

 

5:49 PM · Mar 20, 2026

 

 

AG Jackson has a Bluesky account, but he hasn't posted to it in a few months, let alone posted the above.

 

[abric 227]

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.

Edited March 21 by abric
remove extra space

[NowBergen 924]

10 hours ago, BrakusJPS said:

 

Nexstar divesting WAVY here in Portsmouth (Norfolk) VA? That seems very odd, considering WAVY has been the market's news leader for decades at this point. I kinda wonder what Nexstar sees in WVEC that they don't in WAVY.

 

They will do what they did with WPIX in New York after they bought Tribune stations. They waited as long as they could hoping ownership limits would be eliminated, then sold it to a third party with an immediate right to buy it back, waited a year, then bought it under the Mission side car name. Not the most honest business practice but typical of Nexstar deals.   They also look past the news ratings for other revenue. When their predecessor LIN merged with Media General they chose not to retain the top rated news station (NBC) and sold it to Sinclair. They kept the CBS/FOX duopoly - because of football ad revenue.

[JRyan 694]

As much as I don't want to deflate any hope in people, the chances are near zero that any court would rule the entire transaction void ab initio and require Nexstar to re-launch Tegna with all its stations.  Technically speaking, the transaction itself is not unlawful.  What makes this questionable at best is the entire company being bought without immediate and absolute divestures.

 

If the courts bother growing a spine, the best case scenario would be that the courts rule that Nexstar must divest in markets that have conflicts (Knoxville, Charlotte, San Diego, as well as in addition to the markets Nexstar nominally pledged to).  Tegna as a company is not coming back.  It's in the history books.  One can only hope that a suitable buyer would step forward in that scenario to buy the conflicting stations.

[GoldenShine_10 263]

1 hour ago, JRyan said:

As much as I don't want to deflate any hope in people, the chances are near zero that any court would rule the entire transaction void ab initio and require Nexstar to re-launch Tegna with all its stations.  Technically speaking, the transaction itself is not unlawful.  What makes this questionable at best is the entire company being bought without immediate and absolute divestures.

 

If the courts bother growing a spine, the best case scenario would be that the courts rule that Nexstar must divest in markets that have conflicts (Knoxville, Charlotte, San Diego, as well as in addition to the markets Nexstar nominally pledged to).  Tegna as a company is not coming back.  It's in the history books.  One can only hope that a suitable buyer would step forward in that scenario to buy the conflicting stations.

 

That is correct. This may end up in the Supreme Court. One possibility is that a Hold Separate order is given until the courts sort it out.