Nexstar

Nexstar Media Group is asking the Federal Communications Commission to cancel its order that WPIX New York be divested by Mission Broadcasting, claiming that the agreements under which Nexstar runs the station for Mission are legal and approved by the commission. Nexstar also wants a $1.2 million fine levied against it by the FCC canceled. Mission was also fined $612,395 as part of the commission’s Notice of Apparent Liability. “Through the NAL, the commission seeks to wield its enforcement authority in a myriad of improper ways,” Nexstar said in its response.

Nexstar Media Group said it does not intend to renew the affiliations of The CW stations owned by E.W. Scripps in seven markets. In two of those  markets — Norfolk, Va., and Lafayette, La. — Nexstar-owned stations will become the new The CW affiliates, effective Sept. 1. “We have interest from other station groups in the five remaining markets and expect to make announcements about those affiliations soon,” Nexstar said in a statement.

DirecTV has confirmed that it will appeal a federal judge in New York’s decision to throw out its antitrust lawsuit against Nexstar Media Group. The pay TV company has accused Nexstar of conspiring to fix broadcast retransmission license fees through management services agreements with smaller station groups Mission Broadcasting and White Knight.

FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel is in a position to do much good for TV journalism, but she chooses to do harm. On March 21, the agency fined Nexstar $1.2 million […]

TV stations should not be permitted under federal rules to put off until the final moments their decision to enter serious carriage negotiations with pay-TV providers, according to cable TV operator Hawaiian Telcom. Hawaiian Telcom made that point in a filing with the FCC last Friday over its ongoing regulatory dispute with Nexstar Media Group about a three-week blackout last July that impacted 34,000 of its subscribers.

Requiring TV stations to reach carriage deals with cable operators to avoid signal blackouts is barred by long-standing federal law and regulations, according to Nexstar Media Group in a filing today with the FCC. Nexstar is trying to fend off a Hawaiian Telcom complaint over a carriage dispute last July that led to a three-week signal blackout. Hawaiian Telcom insisted in an FCC complaint that Nexstar violated agency retransmission consent rules by going dark instead of extending their negotiations a few extra days.

The FCC has hit Nexstar Media Group and its business partner Mission Broadcasting with a $1.2 million fine and an order to sell WPIX New York or other stations to come into compliance with longstanding station ownership limits. The commission on Thursday issued a 42-page decision in its probe of Nexstar’s ties to Mission Broadcasting and whether their business agreement violated the FCC’s reach limit on TV station ownership.

A federal judge in New York on Wednesday tossed out DirecTV’s price-fixing case against three TV station owners – including Nexstar Media Group – on the basis that the satellite TV provider lacked antitrust standing to wage the court battle. DirecTV “has failed to show that it suffered ‘a special kind of antitrust injury,’ and therefore lacks antitrust standing to bring this suit,” U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel said in a 17-page opinion.

A new sports-based pay TV service formed by Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery could represent a new revenue stream for TV stations allowed to participate as content providers. “We have confirmation from [Fox] and Disney that this will operate like a virtual multichannel video programming distributor (vMVPD) – which is to say that our Fox affiliates and our ABC affiliates will have the opportunity to opt-in and both be carried and get paid,” said Nexstar President-COO Michael Biard on Tuesday. “If that happens and they target cord-nevers and they get the thing off the ground – and all those things happen – then we welcome it.”

Nexstar Media Group is pushing back against federal regulators’ decision to fine the broadcaster $720,000 for violating good-faith bargaining rules while negotiating a new carriage deal last year with a cable TV company in Hawaii. In a filing Friday, Nexstar said the FCC’sMedia Bureau zeroed in on a single, ordinary contract proposal and inflated its significance to an unnecessary degree in order to arrive at a fine amount that the broadcaster described as “astounding” and beyond the bureau’s authority to impose.

Last month, the FCC fined Nexstar $720,000 for violating retransmission consent rules in some respects, but the agency’s Media Bureau did not agree with Hawaiian Telecom that Nexstar through its bargaining approach crossed the line leading up to the multi-signal blackout that lasted nearly three weeks in July, 2023. Hawaiian Telcom disagrees. “Simply put, Nexstar used the looming blackout deadline as a cudgel in an attempt to force Hawaiian Telcom’s capitulation to whatever Nexstar’s last proposal was before time ran out,” it said in an FCC filing Friday.

Heitshusen had been at Des Moines, Iowa, NBC affiliate WHO for 17 years when she said she was denied an on-air contract in 2020. She filed an age and gender discrimination lawsuit against the station and parent company, Nexstar, alleging a widespread practice of removing older, female staffers from the air because of their looks. The jury returned a verdict in favor of the defendants on Wednesday afternoon.

The largest TV station group in the U.S. is suing in an effort to alter current federal rules that limit its ability to grow in local markets. Nexstar Media Group filed the action in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, faulting the FCC for freezing or tightening TV station ownership rules in disregard of controlling law that points to deregulation as competition to broadcasting takes hold. “The [FCC’s] order exceeds the [FCC’s] statutory authority because it tightens media ownership rules in spite of the statute’s clear deregulatory purpose and the lack of basis for such tightening,” Nexstar said in its Feb. 23 petition for review.

The total of $1.3 billion was attributed to a 14% rise in distribution revenue that couldn’t offset lower political, core and digital revenue.

The broadcasting executive with nearly 30 years of management, sales and marketing experience to lead KRBK and KOZL.

New jobs posted to TVNewsCheck’s Media Job Center include an opening for a senior director of sports. Other existing jobs include openings for Sinclair’s corporate engineering team, Hearst’s national consumer unit, Lockwood’s station in Augusta, Nexstar’s Houston station, Hearst’s Louisville station and a SVP at Nexstar’s corporate office.

Nexstar Media Group’s  board of directors has decided that separating the jobs of chairman and CEO would be a good idea, but it won’t be implemented until founder Perry Sook leaves the company. Sook, Nexstar’s chairman and CEO, is the company’s third largest shareholders with a 4.6% stake in the broadcaster. His current employment agreement with Nexstar runs through March 31, 2026.

The company will pitch The CW, NewsNation, AntennaTV, Rewind and its stations at a dinner at New York’s The Peak.

Nielsen remains a preferred Nexstar provider of currency-grade TV audience data.

The veteran media executive with more than three decades of experience will lead KREX, KGJT and WesternSlopeNow.com as well as overseeing operational agreements for Mission Broadcasting’s KFQX.

The jump to $1.69 per share represents a 3.8% annualized yield and marks the 11^th consecutive annual cash dividend increase.

Comscore will provide currency-grade measurement metrics for Nexstar’s local tv, broadcast, network, and digital businesses.

The independent station will become a CW affiliate on Feb. 1, with Nexstar providing programming and other services, including management of its sales, promotion, marketing and technical operations.

The agreement covers 89 Nexstar-owned stations across the U.S. and its NewsNation national cable news network.

Lone Star NYE: Countdown To 2024 will air across five states on Dec. 31. Originating from KXAS Dallas, it will also be seen on 23 stations in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri and Louisiana.

WOOD Grand Rapids, Mich.; KELO Sioux Falls, S.D.; and WMBB Panama City, Fla., will carry CW’s primetime entertainment and live sports programming, on subchannels.

Yet with two of the three debate moderators associated with conservative media and not NewsNation, including podcast star Megyn Kelly, the event threatens to be at odds with the centrist image the Nexstar-owned network is trying to cultivate.

Perry Sook said the advertising recession and the recent dual Hollywood strikes represent headwinds to getting beyond losses at broadcast network.

He will be responsible for managing the advertising sales team building strategies for the site as well as overseeing the growth of the business footprint across advocacy and corporate environmental, social and governance initiatives.

Until 2024’s political windfall machine can kick in, TV groups have been leaning into revenue opportunities from sports rights and streaming prospects like FAST channels, where the breakeven mark is getting closer.

The broadcaster plans to take the majority of its national sales in house next year. CEO Perry Sook: “We believe that there’s no one better to sell our linear and digital ads to advertisers than us.”

The total of $1.13 billion was driven by The CW acquisition that closed on Sept. 30, 2022, as well as growth in distribution and digital revenues.

The contract covers Nexstar’s television stations, NewsNation cable network and diginets Antenna TV and Rewind TV.

Nexstar Media Group today announced the launch of “The NEXT Series,” a collection of exclusive symposiums designed to bring together thought leaders and influential voices to examine critical issues related […]