Nexstar Media Group submitted its reply brief to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on the afternoon of July 8, 2026, seeking to significantly narrow a nationwide preliminary injunction that currently blocks full integration of its recently acquired former TEGNA broadcast assets. The filing comes in the appeal of a district court order from the Eastern District of California that imposed a broad hold-separate requirement across all of Nexstar’s operations following the completed acquisition.
The underlying lawsuit, brought by DIRECTV and several state attorneys general, challenges the transaction under federal antitrust law. Plaintiffs allege that the combination of Big Four network-affiliated stations in 31 specific local television markets known as designated market areas, or DMAs, would lead to higher retransmission consent fees paid by multichannel video programming distributors and reduced quality in local news programming. The district court accepted the plaintiffs’ proposed geographic markets limited to individual DMAs and granted a preliminary injunction that freezes integration efforts not only in those 31 markets but across the entire country, including non-Big Four stations, stations in non-overlap DMAs, unrelated business segments, and corporate functions.
In the reply brief, Nexstar argues that this nationwide scope far exceeds the geographic and product limits of the plaintiffs’ own harm allegations. The company points out that plaintiffs focused their claims exclusively on Big Four station overlaps in a small fraction of the nation’s 210 DMAs and never asserted anticompetitive effects from integration in the remaining markets or from non-Big Four assets. Nexstar contends that the injunction improperly sweeps in areas where no overlap exists and extends to businesses such as digital advertising platforms that have no connection to the alleged retransmission fee or local news issues.
Nexstar further asserts that it properly preserved its objections to the injunction’s breadth during district court proceedings and that the burden of justifying such an expansive remedy rests squarely with the parties seeking the injunction. The reply brief maintains that plaintiffs cannot meet this burden by claiming the broad order is necessary to preserve the possibility of complete divestiture of the former TEGNA assets at a later stage. According to Nexstar, established precedent in broadcast merger cases typically limits remedies to specific stations or individual DMAs rather than imposing nationwide restrictions, and plaintiffs have identified no authority supporting broader divestiture demands in similar situations.
The company also challenges the standing of the state attorney general plaintiffs to pursue any injunctive relief. Nexstar argues that their claims of harm to consumers through higher subscription prices and degraded local news are too remote and speculative to satisfy either parens patriae or antitrust standing requirements. The brief notes that these alleged injuries closely mirror those asserted by the private plaintiff DIRECTV and rest on an unproven chain of events involving independent pricing decisions by video distributors. Nexstar emphasizes that state plaintiffs have not defined any relevant downstream market for subscribers or demonstrated that viewers lack viable alternatives, including free over-the-air reception of the stations in question.
Beyond the legal arguments, Nexstar highlights practical consequences of the current injunction. The company states that the order prevents necessary investments in local broadcast operations, places Nexstar at a competitive disadvantage against much larger media conglomerates and streaming platforms, and ultimately undermines the local journalism that the lawsuit claims to protect. Nexstar anticipates oral argument before the Ninth Circuit and maintains that the litigation reflects an effort to advance the commercial interests of DIRECTV while applying outdated assumptions about media competition that ignore the realities of today’s fragmented viewing landscape.
The appeal remains pending, with the Ninth Circuit yet to schedule oral argument or issue a ruling on whether to narrow or lift the injunction. The case continues to draw attention from media industry observers because it tests the limits of preliminary equitable relief in completed merger challenges and the ability of state attorneys general to participate alongside private plaintiffs in antitrust enforcement actions involving local television stations.
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