{"id":745012,"date":"2026-04-22T09:15:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T09:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/745012\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T09:15:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T09:15:17","slug":"nexstar-ceo-perry-sook-rips-directv-for-its-opposition-of-tegna-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/745012\/","title":{"rendered":"Nexstar CEO Perry Sook Rips DirecTV For Its Opposition Of Tegna Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tUPDATED with additional quotes and details. <\/strong>In his first public comments since a federal judge blocked Nexstar\u2019s merger with Tegna<\/a>, Nexstar<\/a> CEO Perry Sook<\/a> took aim at DirecTV, one of the plaintiffs maneuvering against the $6.2 billion deal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe idea that anyone, Nexstar included, would be a \u2018broadcast behemoth\u2019 \u2013 to me, that term is kind of an oxymoron, given who we compete against,\u201d Sook told Inside Edition host Debra Norville<\/a> in a 1-on-1 conversation Tuesday at the NAB Show<\/a> in Las Vegas. Amazon, Google and Meta, he added, \u201care multitrillion-dollar companies. Even DirecTV, which is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit<\/a>, is twice the size of us. So [saying] we\u2019re the \u2018behemoth throwing our weight around in this marketplace\u2019 doesn\u2019t really reflect the reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDirecTV, he added, has \u201ca history of trying to weaken the companies it\u2019s trying to negotiate with.\u201d He said of the retransmission disputes resulting in blackouts in recent years, 83% of them have occurred on DirecTV systems. He also said that of the eight state attorneys general who also joined the lawsuit, six of them are up for election or re-election, making the effort to paint the Nexstar-Tegna deal<\/a> as anti-competitive is a cynical ploy in an election year.<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: Newsmax, DirecTV And Broadband Groups Appeal FCC\u2019s Approval Of Nexstar-Tegna Merger, Call Out Trump\u2019s Directive To \u201cGet That Deal Done!\u201d<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tNorville asked about industry consolidation, noting that Nexstar has grown in three decades from a single radio station in Scranton, PA, into the No. 1 owner of TV stations in the U.S. Sook invoked FCC Chairman Brendan Carr\u2019s description of the financial state of the local broadcast industry being at a \u201cbreak-glass moment.\u201d He said he envisions \u201ctwo or three companies\u201d surviving to control all of local TV. \u201cIt\u2019s a matter of time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe lawsuit over the Tegna deal followed the March 20 announcement by Nexstar<\/a> that it had closed the merger, soon after an order by the FCC Media Bureau granting relief from the federal ownership cap. The combined Nexstar-Tegna will have reach to 80% of U.S. household, more than doubling the current 39% level of the cap. While the massive local merger has unfolded in the shadow of the $110 billion Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery combination, in some ways Nexstar-Tegna is the more transformational deal. It also carries the element of President Donald Trump and his FCC chairman, Brendan Carr. Both advocated for the deal to be closed before the FCC had weighed in on the cap and the Department of Justice had assessed potential antitrust issues. <\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: <\/strong>RELATED: Nexstar-Tegna Merger Cheered By Wall Street And Local TV Rivals: Are More Mega-Deals On The Way?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tNorville asked Sook how long the deal likely would remain in limbo.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re not in control of the timetable,\u201d he said, after confirming the company is appealing the judge\u2019s decision to the Ninth Circuit appellate court. \u201cIt will play out over a series of months here,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have confidence that we will prevail on the facts and on the law and we\u2019ll be vigorous in our defense.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe conversation put Sook through his paces, in large part because Norville has deep roots in broadcasting. Long before her three-decade tenure at Inside Edition began in 1995, Norville started as a reporter and anchor at WAGA-TV in Atlanta and WMAQ-TV before breaking into national news at MSNBC and NBC\u2019s Today anchor. She posed to Sook a measured but pointed question about whether \u201ca diversity of viewpoints\u201d would be possible within single markets if Nexstar controls as many as three of the Big Four affiliates in a market, as will be possible after the Tegna merger.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think it\u2019s a false dichotomy,\u201d Sook answered. \u201cI think it\u2019s a false choice. People assume that the status quo, nothing will change. If we maintain the status quo, newsrooms will close. And I don\u2019t close newsrooms. I just move the address and move them into one building, so I pay to heat and cool one facility. I may have one administrative staff, you know, one technical support staff, with two different studios, two sets of reporters, two anchor.\u201d The aim, he said, was to streamline \u201crather than sending two reporters and two photographers and two company vehicles to cover the mayor\u2019s press conference and they stand next to each other in the press pool.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSook said he has invested some $15 billion in scaling Nexstar through a series of M&A transactions and noted he is the third-largest shareholder in the company and has plenty at stake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UPDATED with additional quotes and details. In his first public comments since a federal judge blocked Nexstar\u2019s merger…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":745013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,306944,306945,96194,162069,92531,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-745012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-debra-norville","tag-nab-show","tag-nexstar","tag-nexstar-tegna-deal","tag-perry-sook","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116447605046698480","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=745012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}