Everyone's watching streaming and big tech. But local TV still matters for news, especially in smaller markets. A federal judge has paused the $6.2 billion merger between TV station owners Nexstar Media Group and Tegna, which would have created the largest owner of local TV stations in the United States.
This matters even if you haven't watched broadcast TV in years.
Nexstar operates 201 stations across 116 markets. Tegna runs 64 full-power broadcast stations. Combined, they would own stations reaching at least 60% of U.S. households. That's massive consolidation in an industry that's already heavily consolidated.
U.S. District Judge Troy L. Nunley issued a 14-day temporary restraining order after DirecTV challenged the deal on antitrust grounds. Eight state attorneys general, led by California's Rob Bonta, filed a separate lawsuit with similar concerns.
Judge Nunley expressed concern that the merger would "drive up the cost of television service to tens of millions of Americans, shutter local newsrooms around the country, substantially reduce competition in dozens of local markets, and harm consumers."
But here's what makes this interesting: despite these concerns, both the FCC and Department of Justice had already approved the deal. The FCC controversially waived its rule preventing any company from owning stations reaching more than 39% of U.S. households.
FCC Commissioner Anna M. Gomez, the sole Democrat on the commission, criticized the approval as happening "behind closed doors with no open process, no full Commission vote, and no transparency."
So you have federal regulators approving a merger, state regulators and private companies suing to block it, and a federal judge pausing it pending further review. That's a lot of institutional conflict over local TV stations.
