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nextstar media group Completed acquisition of broadcasting station group owner Tegna After securing regulatory approval despite an antitrust lawsuit being filed against the deal in recent days.
The $6.2 billion merger between Nexstar and Tegna will consolidate more than 260 local television affiliates across the United States.
Nexstar and Tegna, like their peers in other broadcaster groups, have sought consolidation as the industry faces the same challenges as cable TV and entertainment media: a decline in pay-TV customers due to the rise of streaming and technology options.
“This transaction is essential to maintaining strong local journalism in the communities we serve. By combining these two great companies, Nexstar will become a stronger, more dynamic company, better positioned to deliver great journalism and local programming with enhanced assets, capabilities and talent,” Nexstar CEO Perry Sooke said in a statement.
“We thank President Trump, (FCC) Chairman Carr, and the Department of Justice for recognizing the dynamic forces shaping the media landscape and moving this deal forward.”
President Donald Trump supported the Nexstar-Tegna merger in a post on TruthSocial in February, after months of criticism about the deal’s potential impact.
The proposed acquisition was announced in August and was expected to close in the second half of 2026.
The station owner operates affiliates of major networks such as ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox, and is known for broadcasting local news, sports, and other broadcast content. Both companies continue to profit from the high fees they receive from pay-TV distributors and have argued that the merger will preserve local TV news.
But decades-old laws have made such mergers impossible in recent years.
The green light from the FCC and Justice Department allowed the deal to be completed by exempting it from a law that prohibits a single company from owning a station that serves more than 39% of American TV households.
However, in recent days, two federal antitrust lawsuits have been filed seeking to block the merger. One from the attorneys general of eight states, including California and New York, and the other from satellite and streaming TV provider DirecTV.
The lawsuits each claim the combination is anticompetitive, raising costs for customers, reducing competition, and could lead to the closure of local newsrooms and trigger TV blackouts for stations due to horse-drawn battles with distributors over pricing.
“DIRECTV supports the states’ actions and has determined that we need to join in this effort to protect competition and consumers,” Michael Hartman, DirecTV’s general counsel and chief external affairs officer, said in a release. “We have consistently made clear that this merger is anticompetitive and contrary to the public interest, and that if it goes forward, it would spark a wave of similar consolidation.”
