Nexstar CEO praises Trump administration as local TV giant announces $6.2 billion merger with rival

Independent

a day ago

Nexstar, the largest owner of local television stations in the United States, announced on Tuesday that it would be acquiring rival Tegna in a $6.2 billion mega-deal that would reshape the landscape of local media as the Trump administration seems poised to loosen regulatory limits.
In fact, seemingly alluding to the presumption that Donald Trump's handpicked FCC chief Brendan Carr would approve the deal despite current restrictions in place, Nexstar CEO Perry Sook heaped praise on the administration in his company's announcement of the deal.
'The initiatives being pursued by the Trump administration offer local broadcasters the opportunity to expand reach, level the playing field, and compete more effectively with the Big Tech and legacy Big Media companies that have unchecked reach and vast financial resources,' Sook said in a statement. 'We believe TEGNA represents the best option for Nexstar to act on this opportunity.'
As Deadline's Dade Hayes reported, the merger 'challenges decade-old limits on control of local media' as the new company would control 265 local TV stations across 44 states and the District of Columbia, representing about 80 percent of American households. This would far exceed the current limit of 39 percent, which has been in place for the past three decades through both Democratic and Republican administrations.
Making his intentions crystal clear shortly after Trump's 2024 electoral victory that he sought an end to the broadcast station ownership cap, Sook declared in November that he hoped GOP control of government would help usher in an expansion of his company.
'It's evident that the antiquated ownership caps applied to broadcasters do not reflect the reality of today's competitive media environment,' Sook said at the time. 'We believe that there is value to be created for our shareholders through further consolidation, while driving true and new benefits to the American people who want and deserve fact-based, unbiased local news.'
Citing his company's upstart 'centrist' cable news channel NewsNation, Sook also appeared to offer up some 'fair-and-balanced dog whistling' by reiterating Nexstar's commitment to 'eliminating the level of activist journalism out there' while asserting that 'maybe fact-based journalism will come back into vogue.'
Ahead of Tuesday's announcement, public interest group Free Press (not to be confused with Bari Weiss' similarly-named 'anti-woke' outlet) warned that Nexstar and Tegna were striking a 'devil's bargain' with the proposed merger.
'Under any previous administration, such a combination would have been unthinkable,' Free Press co-CEO Craig Aaron wrote. 'Under Donald Trump, it's just a question of how much of your independence and integrity you're willing to sacrifice to get a deal done.'
Carr has been outspoken about his willingness to deregulate broadcasting ownership rules and ditch the 39 percent national cap. Before beginning FCC proceedings in June to change the rules, Carr complained about the 'arcane, artificial limits on how many TV stations any one company can own.'
'So I want to ultimately empower those local stations and, frankly, constrain some of the power of those national programmers,' he added at the time.
Additionally, Nexstar – which merged with Tribune Media in 2019 and owns the majority of The CW network – has found ways to dodge Trump's anti-media lawsuits while other media conglomerates continue to be targeted.
Semafor reported in April that Nexstar was dropped from a Truth Social defamation complaint when the company's digital media outlet The Hill fired a breaking news reporter who had written an aggregated story about the Trump-owned platform's earnings. A Nexstar spokesperson denied that the company fired the reporter in exchange for being dropped from the lawsuit.
The merger, which Nexstar announced would take place in the second half of 2026, is still far from a done deal. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Sinclair, the nation's second-largest local TV broadcaster, has also offered to merge with Tegna.
In preparation for the deal, Sinclair has offered to spin off some of its nontraditional media and cable assets – which include the Tennis Channel – in order to merge its remaining broadcast channels with Tegna.
Meanwhile, local reporters are sounding the alarm over what a Nexstar-Tegna merger would mean for their industry.
'Media consolidations are rarely a good thing, and the Buffalo market is likely to be ill-served by a Nexstar-TEGNA merger,' Buffalo-based investigative reporter Jim Heaney observed. 'Competition is likely to take a hit and a downsizing of the joined operations is likely, although the stations would maintain separate newsrooms.'
As 'local broadcast television is edging toward one of the biggest consolidation waves in its history,' Hayes noted that this proposed deal stands 'in sharp contrast to the punitive approach to the Paramount-Skydance merger.' Of course, in that instance, Carr spent months accusing CBS of 'news distortion' while Trump secured a $16 million settlement of a 'meritless' lawsuit over a 60 Minutes interview shortly before the FCC approved the merger.