Nexstar Media Group buying Tegna in deal worth $6.2 billion
[August 20, 2025] By
WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS and MICHELLE CHAPMAN
NEW YORK (AP) — Nexstar Media Group is buying broadcast rival Tegna for
$6.2 billion, bringing together two major players in U.S. television and
the country’s local news landscape.
If the transaction is approved, Nexstar will pay $22 in cash for each
share of Tegna’s outstanding stock. And the regulatory greenlight could
be likely under President Donald Trump's administration, which has
long-advocated for loosening industry restrictions.
Announcing the proposed merger Tuesday, Nexstar CEO Perry Sook pointed
directly to actions being pursued by the Trump administration, which he
said “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.” He added that “Tegna represents the best option for Nexstar
to act on this opportunity.”
Nexstar oversees more than 200 owned and partner stations in 116 markets
nationwide today and also runs networks like The CW and NewsNation.
Meanwhile, Tegna owns 64 news stations across 51 markets.
Consolidation would mean pooling together all of these resources — and
that typically includes cutting any “redundancies” identified in the
process, explained Paul Hardart, director of the entertainment, media
and technology program at New York University's Stern School of
Business.
“The good news for Nexstar is that makes it run at a lower cost rate,
which they need to do because there’s all these headwinds on the revenue
side,” Hardart said. But for local communities that rely on the
company's stations, the bad news is that “there will be a homogenization
of content," he added.
Other experts note that previous consolidation in the industry has
already shown this.
Nexstar, founded in 1996, has itself grow substantially with
acquisitions over the latest two decades, becoming the biggest operator
of local TV stations in the U.S. after it purchased Tribune Media back
in 2019. And Danilo Yanich, professor of public policy at the University
of Delaware, says the company is the “biggest duplicator” of news
content today — pointing to recent research he worked on that looked at
how often local TV news used the exact same words in at least 50% on
their broadcasts.
Nexstar's size gives it the most opportunity to syndicate information in
this way, Yanich noted, and further duplication seems all but likely as
the company looks to "achieve economies of scale," he added.
Nexstar on Tuesday maintained that the deal will also help it give
advertisers a bigger variety of local and national broadcast and digital
advertising options.
The potential purchase also arrives amid wider regulatory shifts.
Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed chairman the Federal Communications
Commission, which will need to give the transaction the green light, has
long advocated for loosening industry restrictions. On Aug. 7, the FCC
announced that it would be repealing 98 broadcast rules and requirements
that it identified as “obsolete, outdated, or unnecessary.”
[to top of second column] |
In this Oct. 29, 2014, file photo honoree Perry Sook, Chairman,
President and CEO of Nexstar Broadcasting Group, attends the 24th
Annual Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame Awards at the
Waldorf-Astoria in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP,
File)
 Some of those rules date back nearly
50 years, the FCC said, and apply to “old technology that is no
longer used." Carr maintained that such provisions no longer serve
public interest.
In late July, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit also
vacated the FCC's “top four” rule, which has long prohibited
ownership of more than one of the top four stations in a single
market. The ruling is still subject to a monthslong assessment by
the FCC, but could significantly clear the way for future mergers in
the industry.
In company earnings calls held in early August, before Tegna and
Nexstar publicly confirmed merger talks, both Tegna CEO Michael
Steib and Nexstar's Sook pointed directly to this ruling, and
applauded Carr's deregulation agenda as a whole.
“We believe that deregulation is necessary, important and coming,”
Steib said in Tegna's Aug. 7 call, noting that local broadcasters
are “up against big tech competitors who have absolutely no
encumbrances in how they compete."
Beyond their core broadcast TV businesses, both Nexstar and Tegna
also boast digital news, mobile app and streaming offerings, all of
which have played key roles for the industry as consumers change the
way they consume news and other entertainment.
Broadcast TV has been hit particularly hard by “cord-cutting,” with
more and more households trading their cable or satellite
subscriptions into content they can get via the internet.
“The challenge has been recently of ‘cord cutters' — but the bigger
concern is the ‘cord nevers,’ of people who grew up never watching
television, or linear television,” said Hardart, noting that most
consumers, particularly young people, have just about all the
content they want on social media or their phone.
Despite these shifting landscapes, experts like Yanich say the
suggestion that tech players “could do what local journalism does
simply doesn’t hold up," pointing to the difference in content and
reach. Still, he notes that other broadcasters could soon follow
Nexstar and Tegna's footsteps, consolidating the industry even
further.
Nexstar's proposed purchase of Tegna is expected to close by the
second half of 2026. Beyond the regulatory greenlight, it still
needs approval from Tegna shareholders.
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