(The Hill) — The Federal Communications Commission and Department of Justice have cleared Nexstar Media Group’s acquisition of fellow local broadcaster TEGNA, the company announced on Thursday.
The company announced the deal’s closure after the FCC said in its own press release that it was granting Nexstar a waiver of the department’s rule capping the percentage of households a single broadcaster can reach nationwide.
Already the largest provider of local news in the country, Nexstar’s deal with TEGNA will give it control of local newscasts in more than 70 percent of households across the country.
Nexstar, which owns this news site, also owns cable channel NewsNation and The Hill.
“This transaction is essential to sustaining strong local journalism in the communities we serve,” said Perry Sook, Nexstar’s Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer. “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.”
The company, Sook said, is “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.”
News of the merger’s approval came less than a day after attorneys general from seven states filed a lawsuit in California to stop the deal, arguing it violates Section 7 of the Clayton Act, which holds that mergers that substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly are illegal.
The seven AGs argued the mega deal would put “more broadcast programming in the hands of fewer people, removing control from the communities they report to, cutting local jobs, and significantly impacting the delivery of news and other media content to Americans nationwide.”
The merger’s defenders argued before Congress during a hearing last month that the FCC’s current ownership cap rules are outdated and that it kept it from competing with major tech companies like Amazon and Google in the news and information space.
FCC chair Brendan Carr said as part of his department’s approval of the merger, Nexstar had made “concrete commitments” on “affordability, localism,” and what it said is a “commitment to divest a number of TV stations.”
