Nexstar CEO Perry Sook Rips DirecTV For Its Opposition Of Tegna Deal

In his first public comments since a federal judge blocked Nexstar’s merger with Tegna, Nexstar CEO Perry Sook took aim at DirecTV, one of the plaintiffs maneuvering against the $6.2 billion deal.

“The idea that anyone, Nexstar included, would be a ‘broadcast behemoth’ – to me, that term is kind of an oxymoron, given who we compete against,” Sook told Inside Edition host Debra Norville in a 1-on-1 conversation Tuesday at the NAB Show in Las Vegas. Amazon, Google and Meta, he added, “are multi-trillion-dollar companies. Even DirecTV, which is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, is twice the size of us. So [saying] we’re the ‘behemoth throwing our weight around in this marketplace’ doesn’t really reflect the reality.”

DirecTV, he added, has “a history of trying to weaken the companies it’s trying to negotiate with.” He said in retransmission disputes resulting in blackouts in recent years, 83% of them have occurred on DirecTV systems. He also said that of the eight state attorneys general who also joined the lawsuit, six of them are up for election or re-election, making the effort to paint the Nexstar-Tegna deal as anti-competitive is a cynical ploy in an election year.

Norville asked about industry consolidation, noting that Nexstar has grown in three decades from a single radio station in Scranton, PA into the No. 1 owner of TV stations in the U.S. Sook invoked FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s description of the financial state of the local broadcast industry being at a “break-glass moment.” He said he envisions “two or three companies” surviving to control all of local TV. “It’s a matter of time,” he said.

The lawsuit over the Tegna deal followed the March 20 announcement by Nexstar that it had closed the merger, soon after an order by the FCC Media Bureau granting relief from the federal ownership cap. The combined Nexstar-Tegna will have reach to 80% of U.S. household, more than doubling the current 39% level of the cap.

Norville asked Sook how long the deal would likely remain in limbo.

“We’re not in control of the timetable,” he said, after confirming the company is appealing the judge’s decision to the Ninth Circuit appellate court. “It will play out over a series of months here,” he said. “We have confidence that we will prevail on the facts and on the law and we’ll be vigorous in our defense.”

MORE to come …