GoKawiilThe Federal Communications Commission yesterday approved Nexstar Media Group’s $6.2 billion purchase of Tegna, granting a waiver that lets the broadcast giant go way past the national limit on station ownership.
Nexstar said it closed the acquisition late in the day yesterday, immediately after receiving the FCC approval. The deal was also approved by the US Department of Justice, but a group of state attorneys general are challenging the merger in court in an attempt to unwind it.
Opponents say the FCC lacks authority to grant the waiver and that only Congress can change the 39 percent ownership limit. While the FCC says Nexstar will own fewer than 15 percent of TV stations, the cap in the FCC’s National Television Ownership Rule is calculated by the percentage of US households reached by a single entity’s stations. The Nexstar/Tegna combination will reach 80 percent of TV households in the US, or 54.5 percent when applying what’s known as the “UHF discount.”
The US approval has been expected at least since February 7, when President Trump endorsed the merger on Truth Social. “We need more competition against THE ENEMY, the Fake News National TV Networks,” Trump wrote. “Letting Good Deals get done like Nexstar – Tegna will help knock out the Fake News because there will be more competition, and at a higher and more sophisticated level… GET THAT DEAL DONE!”
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr quickly shared Trump’s post on X and wrote, “President Trump is exactly right. The national networks like Comcast & Disney have amassed too much power. For years, they’ve been pushing this Hollywood & New York programming all over the country with no real checks. Let’s get it done and bring real competition to them.”
Nexstar backed Carr in Kimmel fight
Nexstar previously ingratiated itself with Carr by temporarily pulling Jimmy Kimmel’s show from its 28 ABC affiliates after Carr threatened broadcasters with license revocations for airing Kimmel. By approving Nexstar’s expansion, Carr is gaining an even bigger media-industry ally in his quest to obtain more favorable news coverage for Trump. Carr is trying to achieve that by giving TV station owners more influence over national networks that provide shows to affiliated stations.