Nexstar

Nexstar moves the veteran television and marketing executive from Lansing, Mich., to lead its Fox affiliate in Sacramento, Calif.

Veteran media industry executive Byron Grandy moves from WNCN Raleigh, N.C.,  to lead KDVR, KWGN and their related websites and mobile applications.

Aided by the acquisition of Tribune Media properties, it reported net revenue of $1.1 billion, with core advertising growing by 76%.

“The category that is phenomenal in its growth — and it continues to be unabated — is the legal category,” the group’s CEO, Perry Sook, told analysts today. He noted that legal is already the top category reported by another group owner in at least two markets, surpassing auto. “We’re not there yet, and there’s a long way to go for us to get there, but legal is now our No. 2 category, supplanting fast food, furniture and some of the other perennially strong categories. They’re strong, it’s just that the growth curve on legal advertising continues unabated,” Sook said.

The quarterly numbers reflect the 12-day contribution and expenses from the acquired Tribune stations. Total spot revenue grew 11% to $290,213,000.

Following other TV groups, Nexstar Media Group’s broadcasting unit, one of the largest owners of U.S. TV stations, will move to a cost-per-impression (CPM) model from household ratings for selling advertising. As with other TV companies, Nexstar says impressions provide more granular data of viewers watching a program or commercial. More importantly, this positions TV stations against increasingly competitive digital media platforms.

The 35-year local broadcast veteran to lead the group’s WFLA-WTTA duopoly and WFLA.com.

“What we do is we peruse through every Nexstar station whether it is Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and we are looking for things that are more appealing than just the average, everyday news story that only affects a Little Rock market, a Fayetteville market, or a Birmingham, Alabama market,” says Aaron Nolan, the host of Newsfeed Now. 

The FCC has resolved its investigation into a couple of Nexstar stations that failed to comply with children’s TV reporting requirements, which follows its dismissal of a retrans complaint against the broadcaster that comes in the context of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s circulation of an item approving Nexstar’s merger with Tribune. The commission likes to resolve pending issues with a merger party that could impact its standing as a licensee before deciding whether to let it own more stations.

Hank Price: That crucial point in the long-running retrans standoff will come Sept. 5, the day the regular NFL season kicks off on NBC. If there is one thing that will cause consumers to change providers, it is the loss of NFL football. Should that happen, it will be a boon to the cable light OTT services. And the stakes are just as high for Nexstar since the NFL is a very specific advertising buy.

However, factoring out political results in a 2.7% increase. Retrans grows 13.8% to $314 million.

The new agreement with largest independent operator of CBS affiliates covers nearly six million television households across 15 markets.

Legislators continued to turn up the heat in the ongoing retransmission consent battle between DirecTV and Nexstar Media Group, with representatives from seven states joining Sen. Richard Blumenthal on Tuesday in sending letters to DirecTV parent AT&T urging for an end to the blackout as it entered its fifth day.

Those looking for Justice’s decision on whether it has any antitrust issues with Tegna’s purchase of Nexstar spin-off stations will have to wait a little longer. That is because for the sixth business day in a row the Federal Trade Commission has issued no early termination notices on any deal, an unusual hiatus for such announcements.

The Nexstar CEO says while the FCC’s ownership coverage cap is effectively at 78% now, broadcasters would like the Pai FCC to lock it in at that level so that some future FCC with a Democratic majority cannot easily reset it at 39% by once again repealing the UHF discount.

The Justice Department is OK with Nexstar’s spin-offs of eight TV stations to Scripps, part of its deal to acquire Tribune. Scripps is buying eight stations in seven markets for $580 million. The sale keeps Nexstar on the right side of FCC ownership limits.

Spectrum Co. and Pearl TV are expected to jointly announce ATSC 3.0 launches involving some 150 stations in 30 markets during next week’s gathering in Las Vegas. Their goal is to build a national footprint that will let broadcasters better compete with wireless companies and OTT providers while spurring the development of 3.0-ready TV sets and other consumer devices.

A couple weeks before the FCC deadline for petitions to deny Nexstar’s $4.1 billion acquisition of Tribune, the agency received a different sort of download on the broadcaster. HolstonConnect, a subsidiary of rural electric cooperative Holston Electric of Tennessee, has filed an FCC complaint against Nexstar, claiming it has failed to negotiate retrans consent rights in good faith.

The TV industry has an unlikely new star: Leon Black. The billionaire investor is poised to become one of the biggest players in local television thanks to a dealmaking spree. His private equity firm, Apollo Global Management, is working on a trifecta of transactions that could give it control of more than 40 stations from Atlanta to Seattle. First off, Apollo is in talks to buy a group of local television stations from Nexstar Media Group Inc. for more than $1 billion, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The deal could be announced in the next week, said the people, who asked to not be identified because the discussions aren’t public.

Austin Kellerman, news director at Nexstar NBC affiliate KARK Little Rock, Ark., is climbing the Nexstar ladder to join the corporate team as the station group’s director of digital content based in Irving, Texas.

The black-tie event honoring Nexstar Media Group’s Perry A. Sook raises funds for broadcasters in need and takes place March 6 in New York, with entertainment by Grammy-winning duo Sugarland.

American Cable Association President Matt Polka has taken issue with Nexstar’s online effort to sell the importance of its signals to local government and the impact of their absence from Antietam Broadband, with which it is currently at a retrans impasse.

TDS Telecom has complained to the FCC about Nexstar and asked its subs to do the same in an online video. TDS Telecom subs in Indiana and Tennessee lost access to Nexstar stations in Indiana, Oregon, New Mexico, Texas, Tennessee, Colorado, Utah and Nevada on Jan. 1 over what TDS CEO Jim Butman said was an unreasonable demand for an “up to 129%” retransmission consent rate increase.

Nexstar has reached a settlement with the Justice Department over DOJ’s investigation into the TV ad market, specifically what DOJ says are anticompetitive exchanges of competitively sensitive information. It has already settled with Sinclair, Raycom, Tribune, Meredith, Griffin and Dreamcatcher, but added Nexstar to the settlement as a defendant Thursday (Dec. 13) and filed a proposed settlement at the same time, as it did with the others, which all settled Nov. 13.

The Nexstar Media Group executive will be honored by the Broadcasters Foundation of America at its annual fundraising gala in New York in March.

The Nexstar Media Group executive will be honored by the Broadcasters Foundation of America at its annual fundraising gala in New York in March.

Winds tore the roof off Nexstar’s Panama City ABC affiliate during a live broadcast as Michael made landfall. The studio has not been repaired yet, so the station is broadcasting remotely.

A judicial panel has consolidated at least 18 antitrust suits against five TV station groups for allegedly colluding on spot pricing in the federal district court in Chicago. The defendants, which include Tribune, Sinclair and in some cases Gray, Hearst, Nexstar and Tegna, had pushed for the consolidation. The proliferatng suits are an outgrowth of a Justice Department review of the merger of Sinclair and Tribune, which was scuttled after the FCC found evidence of misrepresentation by Sinclair. (Free registration required.)

Nexstar grew its digital ad agency services by 38% to $62 million in Q1 2018, and other local publishers are increasingly bullish on the business according to a new Local Media Association survey. Almost one-third of its respondents said digital marketing services were their top growth opportunity, and two-thirds said that side of their business was profitable.