FCC green lights merger of TV station rivals; local station will be divested

Nexstar, the largest owner of TV stations in the United States, won regulatory approval to buy rival Tegna on Thursday, in a $6.2 billion deal that promises to reshape the landscape for local television and news coverage.

The Justice Department and Federal Communications Commission each gave a green light to the deal, Nexstar said.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr allowed the deal to proceed by waiving a cap that has historically barred station owners from expanding to reach more than 39% of American households. Nexstar previously said the deal would give it 265 stations across the country, reaching 80% of households.

As part of the merger, Nexstar is expected to divest six TV stations, including WTHR-TV Channel 13 in Indianapolis. The other stations Nexstar will divest are in Denver; New Haven, Connecticut; Portsmouth, Virginia; Slidell, Louisiana and Rogers, Arkansas.

In Indianapolis, the two broadcast giants own three of the four big local stations: Nexstar owns Fox affiliate WXIN-TV Channel 59 and CBS affiliate WTTV-TV Channel 4. Tegna owns WTHR.

Perry Sook, Nexstar’s founder, chairman and CEO, said in a statement that the deal has closed and called it “essential to sustaining local journalism.” Nexstar announced it was seeking the deal in August.

“By bringing these two outstanding companies together, Nexstar will be a stronger, more dynamic enterprise – better positioned to deliver exceptional journalism and local programming with enhanced assets, capabilities, and talent,” Sook said. “We are grateful to President Trump, Chairman Carr, and the DOJ for recognizing the dynamic forces shaping the media landscape and enabling this transaction to move forward.”

Carr has been a fierce critic of news organizations, accusing them of propagating “fake news” and repeatedly threatening to revoke licenses of stations that do not comport to his agency’s idea of the “public interest.” His agency said in a statement Thursday that the Nexstar-Tegna merger would “empower these broadcasters to better serve their communities” and “counter the growing power that national programmers have amassed in recent years.”

Anna M. Gomez, the lone Democrat on the FCC, condemned Thursday’s approval, calling it opaque.

“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,” she said. “A transaction of this magnitude, which includes new and novel issues before the FCC, demands open deliberation before the full Commission, not a quiet sign-off meant to avoid public scrutiny.”

The approval comes a day after eight state attorneys general sued in federal court to block the deal, alleging it could increase costs for viewers.

DirecTV also sued in a separate case filed Thursday, calling the deal anticompetitive and against the public interest.

Nexstar’s ambitions to expand its grip on local stations across the country were complicated by the FCC’s national ownership cap, which has long prevented the owners of stations from reaching more than 39% of U.S. households. The company was near that limit before the Tegna deal.

In a statement, Carr asserted his power to unilaterally disregard that rule, citing court precedent in the D.C. Circuit. “Waiving that rule here is consistent with long-standing FCC authorities and doing so promotes the underlying purpose of the FCC’s media regulations by promoting competition, localism, and diversity,” he said.

Carr said Nexstar would own less than 15% of TV stations.

“The FCC has been focused on empowering broadcast TV stations to serve their local communities, consistent with their public interest obligations.  Today’s agency decision does exactly that as both the record and Nexstar’s enforceable commitments demonstrate,” Carr said in a written statement. “For too long, the FCC stood by while newspapers closed by the dozen in communities all across the country.  Those trusted sources of local news and information shuttered while the FCC dithered.  If you care about local news, you should care about the future of local broadcast TV stations.”