Nexstar and Tegna to Merge

[Scott5114]

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?

Also this means that there is probably nobody on the local beat covering local and state politics. It might make financial sense to do the Oklahoma City news out of Dallas, but that means you've eliminated the people reporting on what's going on in the Oklahoma state government and the OKC-area municipal governments. That creates a perfect environment where politicians can get away with things they shouldn't be getting away with. (And should that sound far-fetched...it's already happened with newspaper coverage when that industry consolidated.)

[MikeTheActuary]

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. 

FWIW, of those I've only been aware of Sinclair being criticized for its blatant political slant in the stories it obliges its local stations to push.  That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, however.

I used to have one of the local Tenga stations on as my preferred background noise in the morning, before I went streaming-only (and got very quickly annoyed with how they handle commercial breaks on their stream).  One of the things I appreciated about it was the relative neutrality of its coverage even when you could tell that some of the news presenters had an opinion.

[Rothman]

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?

Also this means that there is probably nobody on the local beat covering local and state politics. It might make financial sense to do the Oklahoma City news out of Dallas, but that means you've eliminated the people reporting on what's going on in the Oklahoma state government and the OKC-area municipal governments. That creates a perfect environment where politicians can get away with things they shouldn't be getting away with. (And should that sound far-fetched...it's already happened with newspaper coverage when that industry consolidated.)

I've wondered how local coverage has survived in my own city, but it's definitely still there, with local reporters...trying to make sound like everything going on is bad...

[hotdogPi]

local Tenga stations

Tegna and Tenga are two different companies that do completely different things. If they were to merge...

[MikeTheActuary]

local Tenga stations

Tegna and Tenga are two different companies that do completely different things. If they were to merge...

I'm a little dyslexic before my morning caffeine hits. 

[kphoger]

It might make financial sense to do the Oklahoma City news out of Dallas, but that means you've eliminated the people reporting on what's going on in the Oklahoma state government and the OKC-area municipal governments. That creates a perfect environment where politicians can get away with things they shouldn't be getting away with.

And it also means that your view of a given political Party is colored by whoever happens to be dominating the scene in Washington DC.  Can you imagine if people's entire picture of the Republican Party were filtered through the lens of Donald Trump?  Oh, wait...  Oh...  Hmmm...

[Scott5114]

It might make financial sense to do the Oklahoma City news out of Dallas, but that means you've eliminated the people reporting on what's going on in the Oklahoma state government and the OKC-area municipal governments. That creates a perfect environment where politicians can get away with things they shouldn't be getting away with.

And it also means that your view of a given political Party is colored by whoever happens to be dominating the scene in Washington DC.  Can you imagine if people's entire picture of the Republican Party were filtered through the lens of Donald Trump?  Oh, wait...  Oh...  Hmmm...

This is something that can vary from state to state. Nevada Republicans seem to be quite a bit more libertarian (and correspondingly less receptive to Trump's wishes which conflict with that) than Oklahoma Republicans are (who basically see what Trump and the surrounding states are doing and either copy it or try to outdo it). This was something that took a little bit for me to adjust to when I started following Nevada politics. (For those familiar with NV politics, I am kind of intentionally ignoring the whole Joey Gilbert/Sigal Chattah/Michele Fiore bunch in this one-paragraph summary because they defy explanation, and because I have yet to find a way to describe Michele Fiore to someone out of state which doesn't sound like she's something I'm making up to pull their leg.)

I haven't gone out my way to watch much television coverage of Carson City, however (I follow Jon Ralston's excellent Nevada Independent for that), so I can't say if the local news coverage treats state political goings-on any different than national or not. There's also the strange Nevada-specific problem of the state capital being six hours away from its largest city that would probably influence that as well.

[vdeane]

Oddly enough, these large companies can actually enhance coverage of state politics.  At least as far as Nextar in NY is concerned, they made News10 in Albany their flagship station and send their coverage of state politics to all their other stations in NY markets.  They even have their own Sunday morning political show focused on the state (Empire State Weekly).  That said, many of the stations air it at inconvenient times, which is unfortunate.  Although I'm kinda curious about bias after John Gray gave a very deferential interview to a very prominent member of one political party one week followed by a normal one to a member of the opposite party the following week (and also given some of the NewsNation adverts I've seen as of late).

[bing101]

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.

For the Sacramento one its going to be that one of them like ABC or Fox affiliation would have to go somewhere else like KQCA-TV the Hearst owned CW affiliate and alternate NBC affiliate in the Valley. That's because Nexstar owns the CW and they get high priority in the Tegna/Nexstar deal if approved. Its one of multiple markets where one of the big 4 networks affiliations have to end to make way for the CW affiliation in the Nexstar Tegna deal if approved.

https://www.nexstar.tv/nexstar-closes-acquisition-of-the-cw-network/

[Henry]

Does anyone have a complete list of the markets where stations owned by these two companies coexist? It'll be interesting to see what happens when the acquisition becomes official, because other companies will be going after the weaker stations while the new Nexstar keeps the stronger ones on board.

[MikeTheActuary]

Does anyone have a complete list of the markets where stations owned by these two companies coexist? It'll be interesting to see what happens when the acquisition becomes official, because other companies will be going after the weaker stations while the new Nexstar keeps the stronger ones on board.

Scrolling through their Wiki pages, I see (but I might miss a few):

Huntsville, AL*
Phoenix, AZ
Fort Smith, AR *
Little Rock, AR*
Sacramento, CA
San Diego, CA*
Denver, CO*
Hartford-New Haven, CT*
Washington, DC*
Tampa-St Petersburg, FL*
Indianapolis, IN*
Des Moines, IA*
New Orleans, LA*
Grand Rapids, MI
St Louis, MO*
Buffalo, NY*
Charlotte, NC*
Greensboro, NC
Cleveland, OH*
Columbus, OH
Portland, OR*
Harrisburg, et. al, PA
Scranton, et. al., PA*
Knoxville, TN
Memphis, TN*
Abilene, TX*
Austin, TX*
Bryan-College Station, TX
Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX*
Houston, TX*
Odessa-Midland, TX
San Angelo, TX*
Waco-Temple, TX
Norfolk, et. al., VA

Asterisks are stations where I think, under current FCC ownership limits, the merged entity would need to divest stations...but the expectation is that new management at the FCC will be changing those rules.  But I was reacting to the limit of two non-low-power stations; I could have mis-classified a few stations in my quick scroll, etc.

In other words, there are probably errors in that list, but it should be close enough for folks who are casually interested.