TV Giant Nexstar Agrees to Acquire a Rival, Tegna, for $6.2 Billion

The local TV colossus Nexstar said Tuesday it had struck an agreement to acquire a rival TV company, Tegna, for $6.2 billion, a deal that would further consolidate station ownership across the United States.

If the deal closes, Nexstar and its partners would oversee 265 television stations in 44 states and Washington, D.C., cementing its position as the largest owner of local TV stations in the country. The Irving, Texas, company says it controls or provides services to 201 stations, reaching roughly 39 percent of television households in the United States.

The deal requires approval from the Federal Communications Commission, which oversees the transfer of broadcast TV licenses. Tegna owns roughly 64 TV stations and overlaps with Nexstar in roughly 35 market areas. That overlap could invite regulatory scrutiny, as opponents of local TV consolidation have argued that fewer owners makes for a less competitive market for viewers and advertisers.

Perry Sook, the chief executive of Nexstar, appeared to anticipate some of that criticism in a statement announcing the deal, saying that the acquisition of Tegna would allow the company to better compete with big tech giants like Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, and Alphabet’s Google. He also praised President Trump, whose choice for F.C.C. chairman, Brendan Carr, must authorize on license transfers.

“The initiatives being pursued by the Trump administration offer local broadcasters the opportunity to expand reach, level the playing field, and compete more effectively with the big tech and legacy big media companies that have unchecked reach and vast financial resources,” Mr. Sook said.

Skeptics of consolidation in local TV have also raised concerns that deal-making gives local TV station owners more sway over local programming. One prominent incident involved a so-called “must-run” segment relayed by Sinclair anchors in 2018 warning viewers against media bias. Mr. Sook said in an interview on CNBC Tuesday morning that Nexstar’s stations tailor their programming to suit the tastes of its local audiences, noting that he does not “dictate content.”

“No one’s handed a script and said, ‘here, read this,’ and it goes across all of the markets in which we operate,” Mr. Sook said.

Tegna was created in 2015 by a corporate spin-off from the newspaper giant Gannett, which separated its TV stations into a different company. At the time, Tegna owned or became partners with 46 TV stations, reaching roughly one-third of all TV households nationwide.

Other suitors are interested in Tegna, potentially posing a hurdle for Nexstar. On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Sinclair, a rival local TV company, proposed a merger with Tegna. The deal would exclude some of Sinclair’s assets, such as the Tennis Channel and its real estate and venture capital investments.

TV has become a deal-making hotbed after regulatory changes that allow companies to increase their ownership of local stations. In July, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit vacated aspects of F.C.C. rules that restrict the number of television stations that one entity can own in a local market. That change could allow companies to own two of the top four stations in a local market, which previously had been prohibited.

Local TV has remained remarkably resilient even as newspapers have continued to wither across the United States. In 2024, Nexstar generated $5.4 billion in revenue, a nearly 10 percent increase compared with the previous year. Much of that growth was driven by increases in advertising and distribution revenue, the money generated by charging TV providers for the right to transmit Nexstar’s signals.