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Nexstar ready to hook up with TEGNA?

Mark Roberts said:
Getting local governmental officials involved could be helpful, too: it's easy to point them to what happened to newspapers and the resulting loss of local news coverage and let them draw the logical conclusion that this would happen in TV, too. That's not to mention competing business interests.
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The funny thing about media consolidation is that it nationalizes everything. I hear a lot about Eric Adams, the mayor of NYC, and Karen Bass, the mayor of LA, but very little about the cities and towns that are within 20 miles of me. The local Nexstar newscast is usually only telling local stories about for the first 6 or 8 minutes of the show.

gr8oldies said:
"Newsmax noted that President Ronald Reagan instituted the cap to block liberal networks like CBS, NBC, and ABC from owning local market stations across the nation". I didn't think it had anything to do with "liberal networks" since there were no "conservative networks". .
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That's not even close to accurate. The Reagan-era FCC loosened the national ownership rules from 7-7-7 (enacted by the Eisenhower administration) to 12-12-12 in 1984. https://www.nytimes.com/1984/07/27/business/fcc-raises-limit-on-total-stations-under-one-owner.html

The 39% rule that prevents e.g. ABC/Disney from owning a station in each market wasn't created until President Bush signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2004 and the FCC created regulations enacting the specifics. https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-06-117A1.pdf
 
AMFMRadFan said:
If The CW moves to WATL, MyNetworkTV would move to WPCH.
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I know what you mean follow where Nexstar places the CW affiliations at. We been through this before when Nexstar took affiliations of the CW in Philadelphia and San Francisco because Paramount ended the CW affiliation contract for their secondary stations. If the Tegna/Nexstar merger is approved then that means in places like Sacramento the Fox or ABC affiliation would have to go to places like Hearst KQCA Sacramento given that Nexstar has the final say who gets the CW affiliation. That would mean KTXL or KXTV would have to make way for the CW affiliation.
 
In San Diego, the CW is on Tegna owned KFMB Channel 8.2. Nexstar owns KUSI (Independent) and KSWB (Fox). I see the CW being moved to the higher profile KUSI, and off the the channel 8 subchannel.
 
I’m watching the situation in Austin with particular interest.

Nexstar owns NBC affliliate KXAN as well as indie KBVO. In perhaps an odd situation Nexstar also operates, via a sidecar company, KNVA which airs The CW. Meanwhile TEGNA owns KVUE, the ABC station.

That would be a lot of consolidation in the Austin market, and I suspect the KVUE operations would be absorbed into the KXAN/KBVO/KNVA studio building, and most of the KVUE staff laid off.

There would still be two other competing news operations with Fox O&O KTBC and Sinclair’s KEYE, the CBS affiliate.

Even with relaxed ownership caps there may be problems getting the merger to work in Austin. The thought occurred to me that KVUE might end up with Sinclair to create a duopoly, but that still eliminates one newsroom in the market.

I would guess that if absorbing KVUE is a no-go Nexstar would nonetheless be able to buy KNVA outright, given the relaxation of ownership caps.
 
Many of you aren't getting it.

Yes, Nexstar wants Tegna for its big market stuff in Phoenix and Houston and Tampa, etc.

But it wouldn't have done a deal like this for ALL of Tegna if it didn't think it was going to be allowed to get ALL of Tegna, very much including the duopoly positions it will enjoy in Cleveland, Austin, Buffalo, and the other major overlap markets.

We are in a new period of seismic upheaval that's going to change the face of local TV in ways none of us will recognize.

Don't get distracted by the chess pieces (will CW move from 8.2 to 34.1?!?!?) when the entire board is getting tipped over.
 
9News Denver & Kyle Clark have done some truly innovative and positive things for TV news and gotten some national recognition because of it. I'm suspicious that will be allowed to continue given the head of Nexstar's remarks as they've positioned for this acquisition and after the last presidential election. Truly concerned about the effect this will have on news, in a time when it seems to be under attack from all fronts - corporately, in revenue generation and from the government.
 
fybush said:
But it wouldn't have done a deal like this for ALL of Tegna if it didn't think it was going to be allowed to get ALL of Tegna, very much including the duopoly positions it will enjoy in Cleveland, Austin, Buffalo, and the other major overlap markets.
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But do we think some of the more extreme consolidations will be allowed, even with relaxed ownership caps? I discussed the Austin situation a few posts upthread, which would create a virtual quadropoly. Seems a complete elimination of ownership caps would be the way to let such combinations happen.
 
fybush said:
Many of you aren't getting it.

Yes, Nexstar wants Tegna for its big market stuff in Phoenix and Houston and Tampa, etc.

But it wouldn't have done a deal like this for ALL of Tegna if it didn't think it was going to be allowed to get ALL of Tegna, very much including the duopoly positions it will enjoy in Cleveland, Austin, Buffalo, and the other major overlap markets.

We are in a new period of seismic upheaval that's going to change the face of local TV in ways none of us will recognize.

Don't get distracted by the chess pieces (will CW move from 8.2 to 34.1?!?!?) when the entire board is getting tipped over.
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I've even wondered if this will all rattle out into four very large ownership groups...

...and whether the FCC in this political landscape of ours could do away with all network O&O restrictions, and all other such ownership restrictions...

...and each of those groups could buy one of the Big Four networks, thereby making the vast majority of US TV stations network O&Os. (Multiple affiliations on subchannels could get tricky, as could markets with fewer than four stations, think Presque Isle, Alpena, and Harrisonburg. Everything in business is negotiable, I'm sure they'd work something out.)

Your typical viewer probably neither knows nor cares who owns the stations they watch, and some even just assume the networks already own all of their respective affiliates in the first place. This isn't something that is top-of-mind with most people.
 
As expected, according to The Desk, Nexstar CEO believes the deal will be approved without having to sell stations.
thedesk.net

Nexstar CEO Perry Sook "confident" FCC will allow TEGNA merger

On a conference call with investors, Nexstar CEO Perry Sook said he feels confident the regulatory environment in Washington will yield changes that allow broadcast mega-mergers.
thedesk.net thedesk.net
“We expect that all of those processes will move forward during the pendency of the transaction, so we feel very confident, as I said earlier, we’re meeting this regulator moment where it is and we will work together with regulators as they consider modifying and repealing outdated rules and regulations,” he said.
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Andy Travis said:
9News Denver & Kyle Clark have done some truly innovative and positive things for TV news and gotten some national recognition because of it. I'm suspicious that will be allowed to continue given the head of Nexstar's remarks as they've positioned for this acquisition and after the last presidential election. Truly concerned about the effect this will have on news, in a time when it seems to be under attack from all fronts - corporately, in revenue generation and from the government.
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I certainly hope it does not affect Kyle Clark and all the people who work with him at 9 news. They do great work over there. I really enjoy watching there reporting.
 
powergate92 said:
As expected, according to The Desk, Nexstar CEO believes the deal will be approved without having to sell stations.
thedesk.net

Nexstar CEO Perry Sook "confident" FCC will allow TEGNA merger

On a conference call with investors, Nexstar CEO Perry Sook said he feels confident the regulatory environment in Washington will yield changes that allow broadcast mega-mergers.
thedesk.net thedesk.net
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Would rather it be confirmed with a reliable source instead of that blog.

But yes. This merger was clearly and blatantly engineered because Nexstar knows they won't be ordered to sell anything. The guardrails you once thought existed like the FTC and DOJ will be of zero use. Brendan Carr can simply handwave away the cap and any restrictions and no one will stop him.

It's a feeding frenzy that comes right before the mass extinction.
 
DavinaR said:
Here is an analysis of the coming deal.
www.forbes.com

Nexstar And Tegna Announce Merger Plan: What To Look For Next

Nexstar, already the largest owner of broadcast TV stations in the U.S., announced yesterday that they will be purchasing Tegna, Inc. for $6.2 billion. What's next?
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com
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Nitpicky correction to the article: The legacy Gannett did not spin off its broadcast properties, but rather its publishing assets into a new company. In an odd twist, the new company took the Gannett name, while the legacy company rebranded as TEGNA.
 
Nathan Obral said:
MyNetworkTV is not a network. Gray would be stuck with two independent stations and barely enough programming for them both.
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This is a subject for another thread but I want to know what MyNetworkTV is going to do in Charlotte. The CW is moving to its affiliate but that station doesn't air MyNetwork programs in prime time.
 
Once all the dust settles from all the TV consolidation we might be looking at a FCC decision on the final implementation of ATSC 3.0. That would result in a lot of signals moving around...again. And then there’s the possibility of another UHF repack if more spectrum is put up for auction and the consolidated companies cash in on some of their overall bandwidth.😱🤯
 
kingskip said:
That’s going to be interesting because WATN/WLMT were at one point owned by Nexstar, but when Nexstar bought Tribune, Nexstar purchased WREG, a Tribune station, and sold WATN/WLMT to Tegna. Oddly, WJKT in Jackson has stayed with Nexstar this entire time. It was once a sister station to WATN/WLMT and carried some of their newscasts but now it’s a sister station to WREG and shows some of its newscasts.
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Nathan Obral said:
If anything, I can see Skydance selling CBS outright—including WTOG—to Nexstar.
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Does that mean that all major CBS O&Os (including KCBS/KCAL in the City of Angels, and WCBS in the Big Apple) would possibly go to Nexstar?
 
Mediafrog+ said:
Once all the dust settles from all the TV consolidation we might be looking at a FCC decision on the final implementation of ATSC 3.0. That would result in a lot of signals moving around...again. And then there’s the possibility of another UHF repack if more spectrum is put up for auction and the consolidated companies cash in on some of their overall bandwidth.😱🤯
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Not another repack... not another repack... :cry:
 


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