Perry Sook

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.

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

Also, Collin Jones becomes Radio Board chair and Pat LaPlatney is new TV Board chair.

Nexstar CEO Perry Sook: “We, as the owner of The CW, are constructing a new affiliation agreement template that is going to allow affiliates to opt out of The CW deal with the virtual MVPD and cut their own deal — or they can opt in to the deal that we have already established for them.”

The Nexstar CEO said: “At the local level [LIV Golf] is selling like gangbusters. Car dealers are not deeply involved in national or international geopolitical conversations. They want to move product. This is televised sports. They’re all in.”

In what was a blockbuster year for the local TV station owner, Nexstar CEO Perry Sook’s 2022 pay package soared to $39.3 million, according to the company’s proxy filing, released Friday. That was up from $21.1 million in 2021. Sook’s 2022 compensation package was driven mostly by a $33.3 million stock grant, with his salary at $2 million, a $1 million bonus, and $3 million in non-equity incentive compensation.

Perry Sook says that in addition to a strong trending political segment, “approximately half of our television advertising categories are pacing up for the third quarter.”

The Sook-led Nexstar has delivered total shareholder returns of over 1,800% over the last 10 years.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we owned a broadcast network and maybe other cable networks that we layer on top of our local content foundation,” Nexstar Media Group CEO Perry Sook said when asked on a podcast to envision what Nexstar would look like in 2032. Nexstar has reportedly been discussing acquiring a majority stake in The CW. The CW is now a joint venture of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery and Nexstar is one of its largest affiliate groups.

As the pay TV universe shrinks, Nexstar Media Group Inc. is eyeing major revenue opportunities tied to the adoption of new broadcast technology. Chairman-CEO Perry Sook told investors at a March 14 conference that by the end of the decade, the Advance Television Systems Committee 3.0 standard, also known as Next Gen TV, may yield “spectrum monetization that could rival distribution revenue today.” In 2021, Nexstar registered distribution revenue of $2.47 billion, up 14.9% year over year.

The growing broadcast group’s leader, Perry Sook, is spending $130 million on D.C.-based political news operation The Hill in his latest bid to expand into national news. I’m guessing that Sook is not done with his news-empire building. And what he needs (other than a dual revenue stream for The Hill) is a business site.

Nexstar’s Perry Sook elected TV chair while Townsquare Media’s Bill Wilson becomes radio chair.

Nexstar CEO Perry Sook weighs in on NewsNation’s struggles; the prospect of increasing reverse comp fees for less programming exclusivity; NextGen TV’s monetization horizon; the industry’s need for a single, impressions-based currency and much more in this exclusive TVNewsCheck interview. Note: This story is available to TVNewsCheck Premium members only. If you would like to upgrade your free TVNewsCheck membership to Premium now, you can visit your Member Home Page, available when you log in at the very top right corner of the site or in the Stay Connected Box that appears in the right column of virtually every page on the site. If you don’t see Member Home, you will need to click Log In or Subscribe.

Nexstar CEO Perry Sook shares context on the decision to convert WGN America to NewsNation, including details on how 198 Nexstar TV stations and 5,500 journalists feed, support and promote the fledgling news network.

Nexstar CEO and President Perry Sook says leagues like the NBA may turn to broadcasters for their over-the-air advantage amid underperforming cable ratings, and that NextGen TV is the greatest tool a TV group can use “to control its destiny.” And he’s bullish about Nexstar’s biggest competitive advantage — its local news and sales forces.

Soledad O’Brien, Mort Marcus, Ira Bernstein and Perry Sook will be honored at the 2020 show, while Nexstar CEO Perry Sook will keynote the Station Group Summit.

Leaders from Nexstar, Gray and Meredith expressed hope that automation and impressions-based selling may help curb a downward trend in spot TV sales, but broadcasters must avoid being “held hostage” to tech companies in the process. L-r: Patrick McCreery of Meredith, Perry Sook of Nexstar and Pat LaPlatney of Gray. (Photo: Wendy Moger-Bross)

The FCC isn’t likely to loosen ownership restrictions anytime soon, said leaders from Nexstar, Gray and Meredith last week, but outside money is likely to continue coming into the industry while the ownership cap holds steady. L-r: Patrick McCreery of Meredith, Perry Sook of Nexstar and Pat LaPlatney of Gray. (Photo: Wendy Moger-Bross)

Perry Sook (center), CEO of Nexstar Media Group, holds the Station Group of the Year Award for 2019 presented by TVNewsCheck on Wednesday during TVN’s TV2020 conference in New York. Sook is flanked by Kathy Haley, TVN publisher, and Harry Jessell, TVN editor. Nexstar was chosen in recognition of its ascendancy to the top of the broadcasting charts by nearly all measures. (Photo: Wendy Moger-Bross)

The Nexstar Media Group is TVNewsCheck’s Station Group of the Year for 2019. When it closed on its merger with Tribune last month, Nexstar Media Group became the nation’s largest station group by most measures. It operates in 115 markets in 43 states covering 63% of TV households — from Los Angeles (DMA 2) to San Angelo, Texas (DMA 195). But with the FCC blocking its path into new markets, it will have to find new ways to grow.

With little more than a love of broadcasting and burning entrepreneurial ambition, Perry Sook went forth from small-town Pennsylvania radio to build the largest TV station group in the land: Nexstar Media Group, TVNewsCheck’s Station Group of the Year.

Executives from Nexstar, Gray, E.W. Scripps and Meredith will weigh in on key issues facing broadcast from regulation to retrans as well as reviewing the outlook on monetizing TV’s future.

For the second straight year, shareholders have rejected a multimillion-dollar pay package for the CEO of the largest owner of television stations in the nation. At issue was $41.4 million in future stock awards to Nexstar Media Group CEO Perry A. Sook under a four-year contract extension he signed in January.

Led by Perry Sook, Nexstar has been from its inception in 1996 a voracious consolidator. When it closes on Tribune Media later this year, it will operate 216 stations in 118 markets covering 63% of U.S. TV homes, the most allowed under current FCC rules.

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.

A record crowd at the Broadcasters Foundation’s annual Golden Mike Award dinner feted Perry Sook, the founder of Nexstar Media Group, who praised the expanding mission of the charity and pledged a $100,000 donation to further its work.

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.

The station group extends the contract of its founder, chairman, president and CEO in the wake of its $4.1 billion acquisition of Tribune Media.

Perry Sook, the CEO of Texas-based Nexstar Media Group, is a seasoned broadcast TV executive who steered Nexstar’s $4.1 billion acquisition of Tribune Media that will make it the largest owner of TV stations in the country. He is passionately preaching the gospel of local.

Despite all the shots I have taken at Sinclair’s David Smith for his top-down meddling in news and for souring the regulatory climate in Washington, I like the idea of his owning Tribune. However, I think I like the idea of Nexstar’s Perry Sook owning Tribune even more. He can better make the case in Washington that mega-station groups are good for the country; he will be a better steward of Tribune’s news operations and will be just as committed as Smith in advancing ATSC 3.0 datacasting.

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.

Not all broadcasters believe that the cap should go away completely. Graham’s Emily Barr: “The problem is, 39% seems wrong and 100% seems wrong.” Other topics at the TV2020 conference Wednesday: The panelists were extremely bullish on how much live programming will play into the overall health of the broadcast industry. And they expressed enthusiasm for ATSC 3.0, saying that there is no need for a solid business 3.0 business plan to make sense of the massive initiative. L-r: TVNewsCheck’s Harry Jessell, Graham Media’s Emily Barr, Nexstar’s Perry Sook, Fox Television Stations’ Jack Abernethy and Gray’s Hilton Howell. (Photo: Wendy Moger-Bross)

Perry Sook’s Nexstar Media Group may be hoping to succeed with Tribune Media where Sinclair Broadcasting failed. The chief executive of the second-largest TV station owner in the country met last week with the Justice Department’s antitrust boss, sources say.

The top executives of four TV station groups will survey the state of the TV broadcast business and its major growth opportunities at TVNewsCheck’s third annual TV2020: Monetizing the Future […]