Nexstar and Tegna to Merge

[Henry]

It's becoming quite clear that Nexstar is becoming the iHeart of TV, already the biggest company in the nation and only getting bigger as it buys Tegna for $6.2 million:

https://apnews.com/article/nexstar-tegna-newsnation-cw-trump-c1743d55103a809ea31c5c7c7c4c0c87

It's going to be interesting to see how the whole thing plays out, as it may need to divest stations in several cities, especially those affiliated with a Big Four network (NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX), not to mention many other owners lining up to take the divested stations off the new company's hands.

[NE2]

Didn't Tegna kill Steve Jobs?

[LilianaUwU]

Didn't Tegna kill Steve Jobs?

who's Steve Jobs

[NE2]

Didn't Tegna kill Steve Jobs?

who's Steve Jobs

My balls

[Life in Paradise]

It's becoming quite clear that Nexstar is becoming the iHeart of TV, already the biggest company in the nation and only getting bigger as it buys Tegna for $6.2 million:

https://apnews.com/article/nexstar-tegna-newsnation-cw-trump-c1743d55103a809ea31c5c7c7c4c0c87

It's going to be interesting to see how the whole thing plays out, as it may need to divest stations in several cities, especially those affiliated with a Big Four network (NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX), not to mention many other owners lining up to take the divested stations off the new company's hands.

They had better hope that they don't have the problems that iHeart has had with terrestrial radio.  Media has been changing rapidly and that's been bad for legacy media outlets.

[vdeane]

not to mention many other owners lining up to take the divested stations off the new company's hands.

Doesn't look like a new company from the article - looks like Nextar buying Tegna.

[-- US 175 --]

I don't see this deal working out.  It'll either be too complex, too many markets with mixed-up/mashed-up stations, or the debt will be a crusher -- even if Wall Street and those in the Beltway love it.  It smacks of greed, no matter how Nexstar spins it.

[bandit957]

Sounds like an antitrust violation to me.

[bing101]

It's becoming quite clear that Nexstar is becoming the iHeart of TV, already the biggest company in the nation and only getting bigger as it buys Tegna for $6.2 million:

https://apnews.com/article/nexstar-tegna-newsnation-cw-trump-c1743d55103a809ea31c5c7c7c4c0c87

It's going to be interesting to see how the whole thing plays out, as it may need to divest stations in several cities, especially those affiliated with a Big Four network (NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX), not to mention many other owners lining up to take the divested stations off the new company's hands.

In Sacramento Tegna currently owns ABC affiliate KXTV and Nexstar owns the Current Fox Affiliate KTXL. If the deal is approved that means one of them needs to send one of the networks somewhere else to make way for Nexstar owned network CW.

[vdeane]

Sounds like an antitrust violation to me.

Especially since the Nextar/Tribune deal was already complicated by Nextar's large size.  I'm pretty sure Nextar is already pushing on the edges of how large a "local news" company can legally be in the US.

[kphoger]

Sounds like an antitrust violation to me.

To be fair, I don't think there's ever been a thread on here about any merger, ever, ever, but someone didn't say the exact same thing.

[Scott5114]

Sounds like an antitrust violation to me.

To be fair, I don't think there's ever been a thread on here about any merger, ever, ever, but someone didn't say the exact same thing.

There is a reason for that.

[kphoger]

There is a reason for that.

Most people don't understand antitrust violations?

[ZLoth]

Lets see here... for DFW, it's KDAF-33 (CW) for Nexstar and WFAA (ABC)/KFAA (Independent) for Tegna. For Sacramento, it's KTXL-40 (Fox) for Nexstar and KXTV-10 (ABC) for Tegna.

The problem that I see with such a merger is that the operations of the smaller markets will be done remotely by the bigger markets, and smaller market newscasts eliminated in favor of bigger markets.

[SP Cook]

IMHO,

- The rule is supposed to be that no one company can own more than one of the "big four" stations, which means different owners for CBS, NBC, Fox and ABC, except in a handful of heavily Hispanic markets where one of those networks achieves "big four" status.  This has, under FCC boards appointed by Presidents of all stripes in both parties, simply never been enforced.  Sinclair, in particular, has simply violated this law and no one does anything about it.

- I could not care less who owns my TV station and certainly don't care if they also own a TV station in some other place, or 100 other places.  It doesn't affect my life. 

- The people with the gripe, really, are not consumers, but ad buyers.  If the same outfit owns two or three of the four main local stations, that is the very definition of cornering the market, which is antitrust.

- Most regular people have never heard of Nexstar, Sinclair, Tegna, Grey, etc.  Most people think their local NBC station belongs to NBC. 

- Local TV via OTA means is a very small minority of viewers.  Most people get local TV (or the network shows local stations show) via cable, a cable alternative like DBS or linear streaming or via an add in to non-linear streaming (Peacock, Paramount, etc.)   Other than local news, the local station really doesn't do anything.  At some point the networks have to ask themselves what purpose local stations serve.

[bandit957]

Most people I know still watch over-the-air TV. Most used to have cable but got rid of it a long time ago.

Since the FCC won't enforce the rules, I'd like to see the state attorneys general get involved.

[kphoger]

Most people I know still watch over-the-air TV. Most used to have cable but got rid of it a long time ago.

Most people I know watch either cable TV or streaming only.  Almost nobody I know watches programming that literally comes over the air.  A growing majority of people I know never or rarely watch live TV even over cable, and most of those I personally work with (and I work in telecom) do streaming only.

[bandit957]

Most people I know watch either cable TV or streaming only.  Almost nobody I know watches programming that literally comes over the air.  A growing majority of people I know never or rarely watch live TV even over cable, and most of those I personally work with (and I work in telecom) do streaming only.

People here watch local news (such as it is), major sporting events (such as they are), or maybe an old 'Simpsons' rerun.

[kphoger]

People here watch local news (such as it is), major sporting events (such as they are), or maybe an old 'Simpsons' rerun.

Sports is about it for the people I know, and a sizeable number of those have found streaming packages that work for them instead of cable.  Most people I know get their news online, including those who basically rely on Facebook for current events.  And almost everyone I know who watches reruns watches them on Netflix or Prime or whatever.

As for sports, my impression is that it's easy enough to combine a couple of streaming packages that cover your sports interests—but only if your list of sports interests is short.  For those who watch a broad variety of sports, it's more challenging and might ultimately end up being more expensive than the cable package you're probably trying to replace.  For example, if you're into European cycling, the NBA, college baseball, British soccer, and the NHL (I'm just making stuff up here), then you might need to combine several different streaming services.  Most people who make the switch just end up abandoning one of their sports interests.

[SP Cook]

According to Nielsen, the number of "tv households" that use an antenna to get TV is about 18%, which is way up from just a few years ago when it was below 10%.  Of course, that doesn't mean they exclusively use an antenna.  I have an antenna, although I get all the main local stations via DirecTV.  There are about 40 stations you can get with an antenna.  Mostly just reruns, but, heck, its free. 

[bandit957]

According to Nielsen, the number of "tv households" that use an antenna to get TV is about 18%, which is way up from just a few years ago when it was below 10%.  Of course, that doesn't mean they exclusively use an antenna.  I have an antenna, although I get all the main local stations via DirecTV.  There are about 40 stations you can get with an antenna.  Mostly just reruns, but, heck, its free. 

I would have guessed it was more like 45%.

[kphoger]

According to Nielsen, the number of "tv households" that use an antenna to get TV is about 18%, which is way up from just a few years ago when it was below 10%.  Of course, that doesn't mean they exclusively use an antenna.  I have an antenna, although I get all the main local stations via DirecTV.  There are about 40 stations you can get with an antenna.  Mostly just reruns, but, heck, its free. 

I'd have expected it to be below 15%, and I wouldn't have been surprised if it were in the single digits.  Interesting.

We have an antenna, although we no longer use it because the TV set we have now has one built in.  We really only watch OTA television for the weather during tornado warnings.  We used to use it for the Olympics, but now we watch that on Peacock instead.  Recently, we watched OTA television for a few days as a curiosity, but we got absolutely sick of the same four commercials being repeated 7,420,000,000 times per hour.

[LilianaUwU]

Over in Canada most people who still watch TV will do so via satellite dishes. Cable proper has become fairly rare, and antennas are all but gone with the switch to digital signals.

[MikeTheActuary]

- The rule is supposed to be that no one company can own more than one of the "big four" stations, which means different owners for CBS, NBC, Fox and ABC, except in a handful of heavily Hispanic markets where one of those networks achieves "big four" status.  This has, under FCC boards appointed by Presidents of all stripes in both parties, simply never been enforced.  Sinclair, in particular, has simply violated this law and no one does anything about it.

I thought this particular merger is contingent on the FCC relaxing station ownership rules as part of its "Delete, delete, delete" initiative.  Here in CT, Nexstar and Tenga both own two stations (an ABC affiliate, a Fox affiliate, and their two sister stations).

- I could not care less who owns my TV station and certainly don't care if they also own a TV station in some other place, or 100 other places.  It doesn't affect my life.

The concern comes from preserving diversity of opinion in whatever local news/opinion programming remains.  If your neighbors' political views are being shaped by blatantly politically biased programming that you find particularly objectionable AND there are few competing alternatives...you might care about that.

There's also the concern that if all the local media outlets are owned by a single megacorporation that closes the local news operation and chooses to handle programming from a distant major metropolis, what happens when there's a local emergency?

- Local TV via OTA means is a very small minority of viewers.  Most people get local TV (or the network shows local stations show) via cable, a cable alternative like DBS or linear streaming or via an add in to non-linear streaming (Peacock, Paramount, etc.)   Other than local news, the local station really doesn't do anything.  At some point the networks have to ask themselves what purpose local stations serve.

That does touch on one of the motivations for this merger -- the profit margins on broadcast TV are becoming increasingly slim in the face of competition from streaming.  While advancements like digital multicasting have provided broadcast stations a bit more of a chance to generate ad revenue, and ATSC 3.0 promises to help, I think viewer preferences are heading in a direction that the current broadcast TV business model has problems.

At my house, we shifted from DBS service to an online replacement (Playstation Vue at first, then YoutubeTV when Vue shut down) almost 10 years ago, when I started WFH full-time (my office wasn't wired for a connection to the dish) and when a neighbor's trees became an issue with receiving high-def satellite signals.   A couple of years ago, my wife finally admitted that she preferred pure streaming, so we dropped YouTube TV for the assorted streaming apps.

Admittedly, that's still not quite an option for sports fans (I'm mostly not, although I do enjoy real football (usually Premier League))...but I think that might be changing too.

[/quote]

[SP Cook]

If your neighbors' political views are being shaped by blatantly politically biased programming that you find particularly objectionable AND there are few competing alternatives...you might care about that.

They probably are.  But you assume that Grey, Sinclair, Tegna, Nexstar, Scripps, Hearst, etc.  have different view on political subjects.  I see no evidence that they do.