MW The TV megamerger that knocked Jimmy Kimmel off the air is illegal, state officials say
By Lukas I. Alpert
Eight state attorneys general have filed an antitrust suit against the $6.2 billion Nexstar-Tegna merger, which the Trump administration backed after Nexstar moved to suspend Kimmel's show
Nexstar needed a major change to government rules for its deal to acquire Tegna to go through, and it led a fight to have Jimmy Kimmel's show taken off ABC following criticism from the Trump administration.
A television megamerger supported by the Trump administration, which was at the heart of a move to push late-night host Jimmy Kimmel off the air last year, is illegal and should be blocked, eight state attorneys general charged in a federal antitrust lawsuit.
The deal for Nexstar Media Group, the nation's largest local television-station owner, to acquire Tegna, the third largest, for $6.2 billion would create "a behemoth" with far greater control over broadcast programming than allowed under existing antitrust laws, the suit alleges.
"This merger would cause incredibly high levels of concentration in local TV markets and is expected to raise cable and satellite prices across the country, causing irreparable harm to local news and consumers who rely on their reporting as a critical source of information," said California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who is leading the suit that was filed late Wednesday. "This merger is illegal, plain and simple, running contrary to federal antitrust laws that protect consumers."
All of the attorneys general who joined the lawsuit are Democrats and come from states like New York, Illinois and Colorado.
Messages sent to representatives of Nexstar and Tegna weren't immediately returned. Nexstar shares $(NXST)$ were trading down about 1.7% in midday trading. Tegna shares $(TGNA)$ were also off about 1.2%.
After the politically charged and legally thorny deal was first announced last August, President Donald Trump signalled that he was lukewarm about the deal going through.
In September, Nexstar and other ABC-affiliated station owners found themselves under pressure to remove Kimmel's show from the air after the Trump administration criticized comments the host had made about the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Shortly after Brendan Carr, Trump's head of the Federal Communications Commission, demanded that local station owners "take action," Nexstar pulled Kimmel's show off its channels. That was followed by other station groups, and eventually ABC itself pulled Kimmel's show.
The move to take Kimmel off the air sparked a major public fight over First Amendment rights, with critics accusing Nexstar of seeking to placate the Trump administration as it sought a major rule change to get its deal with Tegna to go through.
Nexstar has said that its business before the government played no role in its decisions over Kimmel's program. The show was later restored after a week off the air.
The legal hurdles facing the deal
In February, Trump changed his tune on the deal, signalling that it now had his support and needed to get done.
"We need more competition against THE ENEMY, the Fake News National TV Networks," he wrote on Truth Social. "GET THAT DEAL DONE!"
Carr responded by saying: "President Trump is exactly right."
"The national networks like Comcast & Disney have amassed too much power. For years, they've been pushing this Hollywood & New York programming all over the country with no real checks," Carr wrote on X. "Let's get it done and bring real competition to them."
Despite support from the White House, the deal faces significant legal hurdles. Satellite TV provider DirectTV filed its own antitrust lawsuit on Thursday in federal court in California challenging the Nexstar-Tegna deal.
"This merger would create a massive concentration of market power," the DirectTV suit said. "That enormous increase in market power will enable Nexstar to raise prices and reduce the amount, variety and quality of local news without having to worry about losing business to competition."
At the heart of the matter are longstanding rules that cap the number of households one company can reach.
The rules are complex and have remained in place in some form for years, and some observers have argued that only Congress can change them. Regardless, without the administration's sign-off, the Nexstar-Tegna deal would undoubtedly fail to go through.
As it stands, FCC rules set a limit of 39% for the percentage of households one broadcast company is allowed to reach in the U.S., as well as limits on the number of stations a company can own in a single market.
Currently, Nexstar reaches exactly 39% of U.S. households through the roughly 200 stations it owns in 116 markets. Tegna's 64 stations reach 31%, meaning together they would blow well past the percentage limits. Together, the new company would operate 265 stations in 44 states. Nexstar also operates the CW Network and NewsNation.
Bonta said that in the state of California alone, a combined Nexstar and Tegna would control half of the "big four"-affiliated stations in the state, referring to ABC $(DIS)$, NBC $(CMCSA)$, CBS $(PSKY)$ and Fox $(FOXA)$ $(FOX)$. They would also end up owning more than one affiliate in several markets.
Carr, who has called the agency's limits "arcane" and "artificial," and has argued that they put local station owners at a disadvantage compared with companies like Netflix $(NFLX)$ and Google parent Alphabet's $(GOOGL)$ $(GOOG)$ YouTube, which operate under no such limitations. The National Association of Broadcasters has also argued that the rule should be changed.
Last July, the FCC said it was seeking to update the ownership limit and opened a public-comment period.
What is at issue is whether the FCC is allowed to change the rules on its own. Congress has authorized the agency to conduct a review of its regulations every four years - but the one rule that most observers agree Congress did not include in the quadrennial review process is the 39% ownership cap.
The DirectTV lawsuit filed Thursday said the proposed deal "clearly violates Section 7 of the Clayton Act, which holds that mergers that substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly are illegal."
-Lukas I. Alpert
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March 19, 2026 13:26 ET (17:26 GMT)
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