By Joe Flint and Dave Michaels
TV station owner Nexstar Media Group said it has closed its $6.2 billion merger with rival Tegna, after winning the federal government's clearance for a combination that will create a broadcast television behemoth and result in the consolidation of hundreds of local stations.
The completion of the deal, with approval from the Federal Communications Commission and Justice Department, comes less than a day after a coalition of eight states, including California, Colorado and New York, filed a lawsuit to block the merger on antitrust grounds. The states said the deal would result in too much concentration in some local TV markets.
Nexstar Chief Executive Perry Sook said in a statement that the deal will make the broadcaster "better positioned to deliver exceptional journalism and local programming."
In approving the deal, the FCC granted a waiver for its TV station ownership rules. Federal law limits any one company's reach to 39% of the nation's television homes. Combined with Tegna, which owns or operates 64 stations, Nexstar would reach about 60%.
"Waiving that rule here is consistent with longstanding FCC authorities and doing so promotes the underlying purpose of the FCC's media regulations by promoting competition, localism, and diversity," said FCC Chairman Brendan Carr in a statement.
President Trump has publicly endorsed the merger, writing on Truth Social in February that a bigger Nexstar would balance out "the Fake News National TV Networks."
The approval came from the FCC's Media Bureau and wasn't brought to the full commission for a vote, to the chagrin of Democratic Commissioner Anna Gomez.
"This merger was approved behind closed doors with no open process, no full Commission vote, and no transparency for the consumers and communities who will bear the consequences," Gomez said in a statement.
As part of the FCC approval, Nexstar has agreed to divest six stations including properties in Denver, Indianapolis, Ind., and New Haven, Conn. Nexstar said it will complete the divestitures no later than two years.
The states alleged the deal would lead to higher cable or satellite TV subscription prices for consumers, and that consolidation would reduce the quality of local news programming.
The eight states, which are led by Democratic governors, filed the suit in federal court in Sacramento, Calif., late on Wednesday. The lawsuit illustrates how attorneys general are stepping up to oppose certain mergers and acquisitions as the Trump administration takes a more lenient view on consolidation.
"When broadcast media is owned by a handful of companies, we get fewer voices, less competition, and communities lose the critical check on power that local journalism delivers," California Attorney General Rob Bonta said of the suit.
Bonta's office said late Thursday that California would contest the merger even though the companies said they had closed their deal. The states could seek from the court an emergency order halting the integration of Tegna into Nexstar while their lawsuit plays out.
Satellite broadcaster DirecTV, one of the nation's largest pay-TV distributors with more than 8 million subscribers, also filed a lawsuit seeking to block the deal in federal court in Sacramento.
In its suit, DirecTV alleged that if the deal closes, Nexstar will use its size to increase the cost for distributors to carry its stations. "Nexstar will black out stations or threaten to do so as means of coercing the multichannel video programming distributor to agree to its pricing demands," DirecTV said in its suit.
Matt Wood, general counsel of Free Press, a media watchdog, said this deal will result in "laying off reporters as the new bosses seek to leverage economies of scale, and as they churn out the sort of cookie-cutter content that comes from the downsizing of local newsrooms."
Write to Joe Flint at Joe.Flint@wsj.com and Dave Michaels at dave.michaels@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 19, 2026 21:23 ET (01:23 GMT)
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