Nexstar CEO: Still optimistic about TEGNA deal, NextGen TV push

Nexstar CEO Perry Sook delivers a keynote address at the 2025 NAB Show in Las Vegas. (Photo by Kirk Varner)

Key Points

Nexstar CEO Perry Sook says broadcast television continues to be the most-profitable media business.
Sook, who extended his employment contract through 2029, said he’s committed to executing on a $6.2 billion acquisition of TEGNA.
The CEO is also optimistic about the downstream opportunities from NextGen TV.

Nexstar CEO Perry Sook says he is optimistic that federal regulators will change certain rules to eliminate barriers that stand in the way of his proposed $6.2 billion acquisition of rival broadcaster TEGNA.

On a conference call with investors following the company’s third quarter (Q3) earnings report on Thursday, Sook — the founder and chairman of the company he leads — said the TEGNA purchase is part of Nexstar’s next phase of growth in an industry that has more financial upsides than blemishes.

Broadcast television has the strongest reach and generates the most profits of any media business in the sector, Sook said, and that is especially true during political cycles when candidates and causes rush to purchase high-prized local TV ad inventory, of which Nexstar has an abundance.

Beyond political advertising, broadcast TV also delivers the most-craved sports programming — the country’s main broadcasters, ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC, have significant contorl over the top-rated professional and college-level sports programming — and his 200-plus local TV stations offer those live events to nearly all corners of the country.

“It’s clear that broadcast television remains the bellweather and the most-profitable segment of the media ecosystem, delivering the most-watched content and most-valuable programming,” Sook said.

The company’s proposed transaction with TEGNA is intended to cement Nexstar’s long-term position as the biggest local TV broadcaster in the country. While current federal rules prohibit the transaction on paper, Sook and other broadcast executives note that the regulatory environment in Washington has changed to one that favors mass-media consolidation, even if it means rolling back or eliminating certain rules.

Earlier this year, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), the commercial broadcasting industry’s main lobbying arm, urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to eliminate an ownership cap that effectively caps the number of local TV stations companies like Nexstar may own. On Wednesday, Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley said he expects the FCC to act on the proposal in the next few months.

Once that happens, it will be open season for broadcasters to buy and sell without restraint. Sook expects to complete the TEGNA acquisition — he recently extended his employment contract through 2029, based in large part on seeing the transaction go through — and there could be more acquisition candidates for Nexstar down the road.

“Our eyes are on the prize in getting the TEGNA acquisition to and through the finish line, and we’re going to run through the tape,” Sook said. “That is our total focus now. But I will say, I don’t think that, that means that we are forever done with acquisitions.”

He continued: “We will continue to look opportunistically for acquisitions that make good industrial logic and — most importantly — are substantially accretive to the company. I think we’ve got a pretty good track record of finding those, and we will continue that quest.”

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Sook also expects to tap into certain “downstream” opportunities that are presented through a proposed transition of the country’s digital broadcasting technology from the current ATSC 1.0 standard to ATSC 3.0, also known as NextGen TV.

The new broadcast standard will allow local television station owners, like Nexstar, to more-efficiently used their licensed broadcast spectrum to deliver enhanced video and audio signals, along with interactive features like hyperlocal emergency alerts and targeted messaging. Broadcast industry executives and supporters of the transition say the move will give them a level playing field to compete against streaming platforms backed by major tech companies.

NextGen TV will also use less wireless spectrum than needed under the current standard — main signals will be delivered using better video and audio compression standards over broadcast, and some ancillary signals and features will be transmitted over broadband Internet. That will allow broadcasters to free up spectrum for other uses, and Nexstar and other peers have signaled an interest in licensing it out.

By licensing unused spectrum, Nexstar will be able to generate additional sources of revenue — for instance, a wireless phone provider that needs greater regional coverage for its network might be able to piggyback off unused broadcast TV spectrum in local markets where Nexstar operates a station. Some industry experts have also said the spectrum can be used to enhance digital radio and one-way broadband datacasting to businesses.

“We will have spectrum holdings reaching 80 percent of the country, and I think that’s the next big frontier for the industry and certainly for Nexstar,” Sook said. “The opportunity to develop monetization of the non-video uses of our ATSC 3.0 spectrum continue, in my view, to be the biggest value creation lever in our business as we know it today.”

Critics say there are still a lot of kinks that need to be worked out before NextGen TV should be allowed to move forward. Consumers will need new equipment to view NextGen TV signals, and there are few tuners and TVs on the market that support the standard. The ones that do tend to be more-expensive than conventional TVs with ordinary digital tuners, or newer smart monitors that lack tuners entirely.

Some are also concerned about the way broadcasters plan to transmit their signals: While current digital feeds are available to anyone with a tuner, NextGen TV feeds can be encrypted using Google’s Widevine digital rights technology. Most smart TVs, and some standalone tuners, have received certification to decrypt those signals, but a few consumer devices — including a forthcoming version of the Tablo digital video recorder and similar gateway tuner called HDHomeRun — have struggled to gain certification, for different reasons.

But broadcasters say the upsides of NextGen TV outweigh those current issues, which will be resolved over time.