FCC Approves $6.2 Billion Nexstar-Tegna Merger Hours After Eight States Sue

The Federal Communications Commission approved the $6.2 billion merger of local broadcast owners Nexstar and Tegna on Thursday, the same day attorneys general in eight states sued to block it, according to CBS News and NPR. The combined company would own 265 television stations, most of them local affiliates of ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC, CBS News and NPR reported.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said the commission waived a rule that bars a single company from owning stations that reach more than 39% of U.S. households, NBC News reported. NBC News said the combined company would reach at least 60%, while CBS News said Nexstar had earlier put its reach at 80%. Carr said Nexstar agreed to “certain concrete conditions,” including divesting stations, increasing localism and taking affordability steps, CBS News reported; NPR reported the company agreed to divest six stations, a figure not independently confirmed. The FCC said Nexstar would still own less than 15% of U.S. television stations, and that the deal would help local stations “counter the growing power that national programmers have amassed in recent years,” according to CBS News.

Carr said in a statement that “if you care about local news, you should care about the future of local broadcast stations,” and that the deal would give the stations resources to keep investing in news, per NPR. Nexstar Chairman and CEO Perry Sook said the transaction “is essential to sustaining strong local journalism in the communities we serve” and thanked President Donald Trump, Carr and the Justice Department. NBC News and NPR reported that Nexstar said the department had also cleared the deal; NBC News said a department spokesman confirmed it had shortened the standard 30-day waiting period, while NPR said it could not immediately confirm the approval independently. Trump endorsed the deal in February, writing that “we need more competition against THE ENEMY, the Fake News National TV Networks,” NPR reported.

The state lawsuit was filed in federal court in Sacramento by the Democratic attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Oregon and Virginia, CBS News and NPR reported. They argue that the merger violates federal laws against monopolies and would raise prices. “If this merger moves forward, cable prices will spike for consumers in New York and across the country,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said. DirecTV filed a separate suit in the same court, saying Nexstar’s aim is to raise the price it can extract from distributors, which would force them to raise subscriber prices, per CBS News.

Both suits also raised local news. NPR reported that, given Nexstar’s tendency to consolidate newsrooms where it owns more than one station, they expressed concern the merger would hurt local journalism, and that there are 31 markets where Nexstar and Tegna each own at least one station, according to the states’ complaint. Nexstar has argued the deal lets it compete with richer legacy media companies and Big Tech, CBS News reported.

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, the only Democrat on the commission, criticized the approval. “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, as reported by CBS News and NBC News. CBS News said she argued it violates the national ownership rule. The commission approved the deal without a full vote, according to Gomez’s statement.