Nexstar Responds After Tegna Merger Blocked By Judge

Thwarted on Friday in what looked to be a Donald Trump-approved $6.2 billion local station mega-deal to merge with Tegna, Nexstar is vowing to march forward in the courts. At the same time, New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of the leading advocates to stop the Nexstar-Tegna combo, is promising to continue to work to keep the merger from becoming a reality.

“This transaction closed more than four weeks ago following receipt of all required regulatory approvals from the Federal Communications Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice,” the company declared this evening after a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking the March 19 deal greenlighted by the FCC under Trump bellowing “Get That Deal Done!”

Everything is on hold now until a DirecTV instigated antitrust trial concludes.

Though Nexstar isn’t exactly hitting the resent button. “Nexstar Media Group now owns Tegna and has taken steps consistent with the Court order that has been in effect,” the largest local TV station group in America maintained Friday.

Nexstar tonight made its own argument for the merger again in the rest of its response statement and officially announced it will appeal the injunction order.

“For nearly thirty years, Nexstar has provided free over-the-air access to all its broadcast stations — local news, weather, and community-focused programming alongside major network programming,” the Irving, Texas-based media operation,, noted. “This pro-competitive transaction will make local stations stronger and support continued investment in local journalism and fact-based news.”

“We will appeal today’s decision and look forward to presenting our case on its merits before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.” 

Perhaps, but U.S. District Judge Troy Nunley also made it clear in his dense ruling tonight that in the meantime it isn’t going to be business as usual the way Nexstar wants it to be.

The 52-page document lays out precisely that “Defendants shall take all steps necessary to ensure that (a) the local television broadcast stations owned by TEGNA immediately prior to the Transaction (the “Acquired Stations”) will be maintained and operated as independent, ongoing, economically viable, and active competitors in the business of licensing retransmission.”

The preliminary injunction, which doesn’t override the current March 27 ordered TRO until April 21, also notes among various guardrails for the 200 Nexstar-owned stations and approximately 64 Tegna-owned stations nationwide that “the books, records, competitively sensitive sales, marketing and pricing information, and decision making concerning the production, distribution, provision, or sale of products or services by or under any of the Acquired Stations will be kept separate and apart from all other stations owned by Nexstar immediately prior to the Transaction and any of Nexstar’s other operations.” 

Consolidating hundreds of local TV stations under one corporate owner would mean higher prices and lower quality programming for consumers,” New York AG Letitia James said Friday after Nunley’s much anticipated and expected ruling appeared in the federal docket.

“Nexstar’s merger with Tegna illegally eliminates competition, and today we won a critical victory in our effort to enforce the law and stop this merger from moving forward,” James added, echoing words of her California AG colleague and fellow plaintiff Rob Bonta. “We will keep fighting our case to ensure fair competition among local TV stations that serve communities across the country.”

To spotlight that across the country aspect of this whole thing, as well as the antitrust angle, the hundreds of stations that would be under the control of a merged Nexstar-Tegna would span 80% of the country.

The action filed in DC on March 23 by DirecTV, Newsmax and a collection of cable and broadband associations, including ones in Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Washington, Indiana, and Mississippi challenges the Brendan Carr-run FCC’s swift grant of a waiver to Nexstar. A hall pass of sorts that allows the conservative inclined company to be free of a national ownership rule that limits any entity from owning stations that collectively reach more than 39% of America.