Nexstar Media Group has formally asked the Federal Communications Commission for permission to complete its long-pending acquisition of TEGNA Inc., filing applications on November 18, 2025, to transfer all of TEGNA’s broadcast television licenses to Nexstar. The requests include detailed arguments for waivers of several ownership rules that would otherwise block or severely restrict the combination if those rules remain unchanged.
The companies are betting on a more permissive regulatory environment under the incoming Trump administration and a Republican-majority FCC. Nexstar contends that rules written decades ago no longer match today’s media marketplace, where local television stations compete against global technology platforms and national cable networks that face no comparable ownership caps. The filing emphasizes that granting the waivers—or better yet, eliminating the outdated restrictions entirely—would allow the combined company to achieve the scale needed to keep investing in local newsrooms at a time when many communities have lost traditional journalism outlets.
If approved without major divestitures, the transaction would create the largest local-television station group in the United States by a significant margin. Nexstar already owns or operates stations reaching roughly 39 percent of U.S. television households; adding TEGNA’s portfolio of 64 stations in 51 markets would push that national footprint well above the current 39 percent statutory cap and trigger multiple local-market overlaps that violate the FCC’s duopoly and top-four restrictions in dozens of cities.
Rather than proposing large-scale station sales at the outset, Nexstar has instead asked the Commission to waive those limits in the public interest. The applications argue that consolidation would strengthen local journalism by giving the combined company greater resources to produce original reporting, maintain costly broadcast operations, and negotiate more effectively with cable, satellite, and streaming distributors. The filing contrasts local television newsrooms—staffed by journalists who live in the communities they cover—with social-media algorithms and artificial-intelligence content that the company portrays as less reliable.
The deal’s revival comes after years of uncertainty. Nexstar and TEGNA first announced the $8.6 billion transaction in early 2023, only to face prolonged FCC review under the prior administration, which had signaled a tougher stance on media consolidation. With a new administration preparing to take office in January 2026 and FCC leadership expected to shift soon afterward, Nexstar appears confident that the political and regulatory climate has changed enough to move forward.
Completion of the merger would bring under one corporate roof some of the country’s best-known local television brands, including stations affiliated with all four major broadcast networks as well as The CW. The enlarged Nexstar would produce well over half a million hours of local news and programming annually, dwarfing every other local-television operator and giving it unprecedented reach into living rooms across virtually every major and mid-sized market in the country.
The FCC now has 180 days, extendable, to rule on the transfer applications, though the timeline could accelerate once new commissioners are seated. Until the agency acts, the transaction remains in limbo, with TEGNA continuing to operate independently and Nexstar preparing to integrate the stations if and when approval arrives.
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