Nexstar Media Group
Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarters in Irving, Texas; Midtown Manhattan; and Chicago. Founded on June 17, 1996, the company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 television stations across the United States, most of which are affiliated with the four major American television networks and MyNetworkTV in markets as large as New York City and as small as San Angelo, Texas. It also operates all of the stations owned by certain affiliates such as Mission Broadcasting and Vaughan Media, under local marketing agreements to satisfy existing regulations set in place by the Federal Communications Commission.
In addition, Nexstar owns one radio station, WGN in Chicago, operates mid-major TV network The CW and oversees The CW Plus syndication service through a 75% majority stake, in which all CW and CW+ affiliates the company previously owned became directly owned-and-operated stations. The company also owns two terrestrial television networks airing classic shows, Antenna TV and Rewind TV, one FAST channel airing sports programming, SportsGrid, and controls pay television network NewsNation. Nexstar has been described as politically conservative, but not as much as Sinclair.
History
1996–2010: Formation
Nexstar Media Group was formed as Nexstar Broadcasting Group on June 17, 1996, initially backed by ABRY Partners. The first television station bought by Nexstar was WYOU in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Nexstar bought WYOU from Diversified Communications. The sale was completed on September 28 of that year. Nexstar promptly fired two anchors and laid off several long-term staff members. Nexstar founder Perry Sook said that WYOU would be Nexstar's flagship station, keeping an office off the newsroom for years. In 1998, Nexstar purchased WBRE-TV in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Because this was in the same market as WYOU, WYOU was 'sold' to Mission Broadcasting. This began the first-ever 'shared-services' agreement between stations. WYOU's sales staff was kept in Scranton, while the production and news operations were moved to WBRE's offices in Wilkes-Barre. WYOU staff who were not laid off were fired by Nexstar, hired by Mission, and eventually rehired by Nexstar. Mission Broadcasting then paid Nexstar to operate and control the production and news-gathering operations while Mission kept the sales and management team.In 1997, Nexstar acquired WJET-TV in Erie, Pennsylvania, from Jet Broadcasting, for which it paid $18.5 million. On January 12, 1998, Nexstar acquired three stations owned by the U.S. Broadcast Group, including KFDX-TV, KBTV-TV, and KSNF, for $64.3 million. In 1999, Nexstar bought out WROC-TV in Rochester, New York, from Smith Broadcasting. In 2003, Nexstar acquired Quorum Broadcasting, owner of ten television stations. Also that year, it went public on the NASDAQ, and purchased KARK-TV and WDHN-TV from Morris Multimedia. In 2006, Nexstar bought out WTAJ-TV and the licensee rights of WLYH-TV from SJL Broadcasting for $56 million.
On March 20, 2009, Nexstar operated television stations that were owned by Four Points Media Group through an outsourcing agreement. However, on September 8, 2011, Sinclair Broadcast Group announced its intent to purchase the Four Points stations outright and took over the MSA for the stations that October upon Federal Trade Commission approval of the deal. The Federal Communications Commission gave final approval of the group deal on December 21, and the Sinclair purchase of the Four Points stations was completed on January 1, 2012.
2011–2013: Retransmission consent dispute with Fox
In 2011, Nexstar and Fox entered into a dispute over terms of reverse compensation; this occurred as Fox began to aggressively seek shares of earnings from retransmission consent agreements with cable and satellite operators as part of affiliation agreement renewals between station groups with affiliates whose affiliation contracts had already expired or were near expiration. Reportedly, the amount from retransmission consent fees from cable and satellite operators that Fox wanted its affiliates to pay the network would be 25 cents per subscriber during the first year of the affiliation agreement, increasing to 50 cents by the fourth year. President of affiliate sales and marketing for Fox, Mike Hopkins, had said earlier in the year that the network would consider moving its affiliation to another market station as a last resort if existing affiliates did not agree to the terms for reverse compensation retrans sharing.Fox dropped its affiliation from Nexstar-owned/managed stations in four markets, with three of the replacement stations adding Fox in addition to existing affiliations with the MyNetworkTV programming service. In Indiana, two markets saw Fox go from a primary affiliation of one station to joining an existing MyNetworkTV-affiliated digital subchannel of a competing Big Three station, with MyNetworkTV going to a secondary affiliation: in Evansville, Fox moved from WTVW to a MyNetworkTV-affiliated subchannel of CBS affiliate WEVV-TV on July 1, while in Fort Wayne, the Fox affiliation moved from WFFT-TV to a MyNetworkTV-affiliated subchannel of NBC affiliate WISE-TV on August 1. The network also moved its affiliation in Springfield, Missouri from KSFX-TV to upstart MyNetworkTV affiliate KRBK on September 1, 2011, with both stations becoming independents.
Nexstar chose to drop Fox from WFXW in Terre Haute, Indiana and re-affiliate with ABC on September 1, 2011 as part of a long-term renewal agreement between Nexstar and ABC for the group's nine existing ABC stations, reversing a 1995 switch that saw Terre Haute losing over-the-air carriage of ABC programs ; the Fox affiliation then moved to a digital subchannel of CBS affiliate WTHI-TV which also added MyNetworkTV as a secondary affiliation. Nexstar's remaining Fox affiliates have since signed a renewal agreement through December 2013; In addition, following the settlement of Nexstar's antitrust lawsuit against WISE-TV's then-owner Granite Broadcasting, WFFT-TV reclaimed the Fox affiliation on March 1, 2013. Nexstar would purchase KRBK in late 2018, restoring its ownership of the Fox affiliation in the Springfield, Missouri market.
2012–2019: Expansion by acquisitions
In July 2012, Nexstar agreed to purchase eleven stations and Inergize Digital Media from Newport Television, with two stations going to affiliate Mission Broadcasting. On August 12, 2012, Nexstar sold KBTV-TV to Deerfield Media, which entered into a JSA and SSA with Sinclair Broadcast Group to become a duopoly with KFDM-TV. On April 24, 2013, Nexstar announced that it would acquire the entire group of Communications Corporation of America, KMSS-TV, KPEJ-TV, and most of the ComCorp-managed stations that are owned by White Knight Broadcasting would be sold to Mission Broadcasting while WEVV-TV and White Knight Broadcasting's KSHV-TV would be sold to a female-controlled company called Rocky Creek Communications, with Nexstar assuming operational control of those stations.On September 16, 2013, Nexstar announced that it would acquire WOI-DT, KCAU-TV, and WHBF-TV from Citadel Communications for $88 million. Nexstar immediately took over the stations' operations through a time brokerage agreement. The deal followed Phil Lombardo's decision to "slow down", as well as a desire by Lynch Entertainment to divest its investments in WOI and WHBF; Citadel would continue to own KLKN, WLNE-TV, and its Sarasota properties. On March 5, 2014, the Federal Communications Commission approved the sale of these stations to Nexstar outright and the deal was completed on March 13. KCAU continued to use Citadel's standardized news sets, graphics and logos. On November 6, 2013, Nexstar announced that it would purchase the Grant Broadcasting stations for $87.5 million. Due to Federal Communications Commission ownership regulations, one of the stations, KLJB, was spun off to Marshall Broadcasting Group, but is operated by Nexstar through a shared services agreement. The sale was completed on December 1, 2014. In 2015, Nexstar sold off the licensee assets of WLYH-TV, the CW affiliate to Howard Stirk Holdings.
On March 13, 2014, Nexstar announced that it would purchase Internet Broadcasting, for $20 million. The company had also recently acquired competitor Inergize Digital through its purchase of assets from Newport Television, followed by Enterprise Technology Group, a spun-off joint venture between LIN Media and Fox Television Stations. The providers were merged to form Lakana, led by former ETG CEO Phillip Hyun. On October 23, 2014, Nexstar bought out KASW in Phoenix from SagamoreHill Broadcasting and Meredith Corporation, and it was completed on January 30, 2015.
On February 2, 2015, Nexstar finalized its acquisition of Yashi, a location-focused, video-advertising and programmatic-technology company, for $33 million. On November 17, 2015, Nexstar announced its intent to purchase West Virginia Media Holdings' stations for $130 million. The company took over the stations' non-license assets under a time brokerage agreement in December 2015 pending the formal completion of the deal, expected in late 2016. The two companies viewed the acquisition as being a complement to Nexstar's WHAG-TV, whose coverage area includes the Eastern Panhandle region. Nexstar CEO Perry A. Sook is an alumnus of WOWK. The sale was completed on January 31, 2017.
On August 1, 2018, Nexstar bought out KRBK in Springfield from Koplar Communications for $16.45 million, and also bought out WHDF in Huntsville from Lockwood Broadcast Group for $2.25 million. On November 1, 2018, Nexstar bought out MyNetworkTV affiliate KFVE in Honolulu from American Spirit Media as part of transactions requiring from the Raycom Media/Gray Television merger. In spring 2019, Nexstar launched Border Report, a website focusing on news stories from the Mexico–United States border.
On November 5, 2019, it was announced that Nexstar would acquire Fox Television Stations-owned WJZY and MyNetworkTV outlet WMYT-TV in Charlotte, North Carolina for $45 million. In turn, it also announced that it would sell its duopoly of Seattle-based KCPQ and KZJO to FTS in a separate deal worth $350 million. Nexstar made the transactions to pay down debt and consolidate operations in the Southeast. The sale closed on March 2, 2020. As part of a settlement between the parties in litigation over the failed deal, Sinclair had to sell WDKY-TV in Lexington, Kentucky, and the non-license assets of KGBT-TV in Harlingen, Texas, to Nexstar Media Group for $60 million on January 27, 2020. The company's founder, Perry Sook, had once been a principal of Superior Communications, who owned the WDKY property, making the sale to Nexstar a homecoming of sorts. WDKY's transaction was completed on September 17, 2020.