Nexstar Media Group, Inc.

Company information

  • Date founded: 1996
  • Industry: Communications/Entertainment
  • Corporate headquarters: Irving, Texas
  • Type: Public
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Overview

Nexstar Media Group Inc. is the largest local television and digital media company in the United States. In the mid-2020s, Nexstar owned a portfolio of 197 full-power television stations, including partner stations, along with a wide variety of digital media holdings. These stations reached across 116 markets. Almost 70 percent of all households in the United States that owned televisions had access to Nexstar-owned media. Nexstar focuses its activities on providing local television programming for both education and entertainment. The company also manages a wide range of advertising services, from small local companies to major international corporations, on its television and digital platforms, covering both television commercials and digital content. The founder of Nexstar, Perry A. Sook, began the company in 1996 with a single station in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The company grew quickly through numerous acquisitions and new strategies and innovations, both in technology and business. In the mid-2020s, Nexstar Media Group, Inc. had headquarters in Irving, Texas, Manhattan, New York, and Chicago, Illinois. It employed approximately 11,700 people.

History

Nexstar Media Group, Inc. began in 1996. That year, founder Perry A. Sook purchased the television station WYOU, based in Scranton, Pennsylvania. With that as a foundation, Sook founded Nexstar Media Group and began adding more stations to the company. He began in northeastern Pennsylvania but soon expanded operations nationally. Along with being the company founder, Sook also took on the dual roles of chairman and chief executive officer (CEO). More than 11,000 employees would soon fill the ranks of Nexstar, which operated out of a headquarters on the John Carpenter Freeway in Irving, Texas. In 2023, Nexstar had additional headquarters in Manhattan and Chicago. This followed its acquisition of media companies in the New York City and Chicago metropolitan areas.

As Nexstar Media Group grew, it also introduced new innovations into the television industry that helped it stand out from other companies and expand at a fast rate. These innovations included technology and business strategies that sought to improve the quality of programming while matching the programs to appropriate sources of revenue. At the same time, Nexstar underwent a series of mergers and acquisitions meant to diversify its holdings and continually reposition itself to meet the needs of the constantly changing television marketplace.

In the early 2000s, Nexstar acquired several new stations, including Quorum Broadcasting, in a move that doubled its station holdings. Nexstar went public in 2003. Another important move came in 2005, when the company began to request that pay-television services pay to use local programs. Many pay-television services did so to ensure access to Nexstar programming. This dynamic, known as the retransmission fee, brought more revenue to Nexstar. It also created a new source of funding for a wide variety of local broadcasters.

Strengthened by its new revenue sources, Nexstar Media Group merged with and acquired several more stations in the coming years, growing quickly from 2010 to 2015. It continued to diversify and expand into digital forms of media that could be useful to local broadcasters, despite some disputes, including a compensation conflict with the FOX network.

In 2016, Nexstar Media Group purchased Media General, a conglomerate media company with extensive holdings of more than 70 television stations and digital media platforms. This move brought Nexstar’s holdings up to 171 stations nationally, reaching approximately 39 percent of all households in the United States. Another major acquisition in 2019, this time of Tribune Media, made Nexstar Media Group the largest local television and digital media broadcasting company in the United States.

Impact

The 2019 acquisition of Tribune Media increased the holdings of Nexstar Media Group, Inc., to 199 full-power owned or serviced television stations across 116 television markets. These stations were affiliated with major television properties such as CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, My Network TV, The CW, and Telemundo. Other related properties include News Nation, Rewind TV, Antenna TV, and WGN Radio 720.

Nexstar made a number of significant media acquisitions in 2021 and 2021. In August 2021, Nexstar gained ownership of The Hill, a media site for political commentary. The following year, in October 2022, Nexstar purchased The CW Network, reported to be the nation's fifth major broadcast network.

Nexstar stations reached more than 70 percent of television-owning households in the United States. This high level of holdings and exposure made Nexstar Media Group the largest company of its kind in the country. By the early 2020s, it also yielded an estimated revenue exceeding $4.5 billion.

Nexstar Media Group has also expanded beyond the television market. With the rise of digital media, Nexstar acquired a wide variety of Internet sites and services. In the mid-2020s, Nexstar owned 120 local websites as well as 239 local apps for mobile devices. Nexstar also offers scalable advertising services for television and digital media, allowing organizations both large and small to purchase ad time in appropriate venues.

According to Yahoo! Finance, in the early 2020s, Perry Sook retained his role as chairman and CEO, for which he received an annual salary of approximately $5.26 million. Thomas Carter was the president and chief operating officer, and Dana Zimmer served as the executive vice president and chief distribution and strategy officer.

The Nexstar website explains the company’s four primary values. The first relates to a focus on local communities. Although Nexstar has grown to national proportions, the company attempts not only to respect and preserve the local elements of their programming, but also to help local communities grow. The second value relates to the quality of programming offered by Nexstar, and the company’s moves to ensure that local broadcasters are properly compensated for the rebroadcasting of their work on pay-television stations.

The company’s third main value relates to the growth of the company, both in geographic scope as well as in media interests. Nexstar seeks to provide a wide range of services for the ever-changing media market to meet consumer wants. Finally, the fourth value is innovation, referring to the strategies and technologies Nexstar has employed to grow and diversify its offerings.

Bibliography

“Company History.” Nexstar Media Group, Inc., www.nexstar.tv/history. Accessed 28 Jan. 2025.

"Company Milestones." Nexstar Media Group, www.nexstar.tv/company-milestones. Accessed 28 Jan. 2025.

“Networks.” Nexstar Media Group, Inc., 2023, www.nexstar.tv/networks. Accessed 28 Jan. 2025.

“Nexstar Media Group.” Fortune, 2 June 2021, fortune.com/company/nexstar-media-group/fortune500. Accessed 28 Jan. 2025.

“Nexstar Media Group, Inc.” Dun & Bradstreet, www.dnb.com/business-directory/company-profiles.nexstar‗media‗group‗inc.a31bc9233bf380d13b10b216275593a0.html. Accessed 28 Jan. 2025.

“Nexstar Media Group, Inc. Names Lee Ann Gliha Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.” Business Wire, 26 July 2021, www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210726005035/en/Nexstar-Media-Group-Inc.-Names-Lee-Ann-Gliha-Executive-Vice-President-and-Chief-Financial-Officer. Accessed 28 Jan. 2025.

“Nexstar Media Group, Inc. (NXST).” Yahoo! Finance, finance.yahoo.com/quote/NXST/profile. Accessed 28 Jan. 2025.

“NXST–Nexstar Media Group, Inc.” Seeking Alpha, 8 Aug. 2021, seekingalpha.com/symbol/NXST. Accessed 28 Jan. 2025.

Spangler, Todd. "The Hill Acquired by TV Broadcast Group Nexstar Media for $130 Million." Variety, 20 Aug. 2021, variety.com/2021/digital/news/the-hill-acquired-nexstar-media-1235045896. Accessed 28 Jan. 2025.