Nexstar Media‘s $6.2 billion acquisition of rival TV station group owner Tegna is on hold after a federal judge ruled that the proposed merger “is presumed likely to violate antitrust laws based on the combined firm market share alone.”
The deal would augment Nexstar, already the biggest TV station group in the U.S., with Tegna’s footprint — resulting in a company with 259 full-power stations affiliated with networks including ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC. The deal would give the combined company reach across 80% of U.S. TV households. Nexstar announced on March 19 that the Tegna deal had closed following FCC and Justice Department approvals.
But now the deal has been paused amid legal challenges asserting that Nexstar-Tegna violates antitrust laws. On Friday, March 27, Judge Troy Nunley of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California issued a 14-day temporary restraining order blocking the Nexstar-Tegna merger, in response to a lawsuit filed by DirecTV. Nunley scheduled an April 7 hearing in the case to review whether the deal violates antitrust law and warrants a preliminary injunction to stop it.
In his ruling, Nunley wrote that Nexstar and Tegna “do not contest this merger will increase Nexstar’s bargaining leverage to extract higher fees.” Per the judge’s order, Tegna and Nexstar for the time being must operate separately and may not share any “competitively sensitive” information, including any information related to retransmission fee negotiations, among other restrictions.
DirecTV on March 18 sued Nexstar and Tegna, asserting that the proposed merger represents a concentration of broadcast TV “without precedent” and would “irreparably drive up consumer costs, reduce local competition, shutter local newsrooms, and increase both the frequency and duration of blackouts of key local teams and network programming,” according to the company.
Separately, also on March 18, eight state attorneys general including from California and New York sued to stop the Nexstar-Tegna merger on the same grounds.
In response to a request for comment, a Nexstar rep said the company “does not comment on pending litigation.” Tegna and DirecTV did not respond to requests for comment.
Nexstar announced its agreement to buy Tegna in August 2025. In approving the deal, the FCC granted the companies a waiver of its ownership-cap rule that prohibits a single local station owner from reaching more than 39% of U.S. households. Nexstar has committed to divesting six stations across six different markets as well as “commitments that go to affordability and localism,” per the FCC.
According to the companies, their holdings overlap in 35 designated market areas (DMAs), and the combined company would operate 265 full-power television stations in 44 states and the District of Columbia and in 132 of the country’s 210 television DMAs. Nexstar committed to divest the following six TV stations no later than two years after the Tegna deal closes: KTVD, Denver, Colorado; WTHR, Indianapolis, Indiana; WCTX, New Haven, Connecticut; WAVY, Portsmouth, Virginia; WUPL, Slidell, Louisiana; and KNWA, Rogers, Arkansas.
According to the FCC’s order approving the transaction, Nexstar also committed to “expanding its investment in local news and programming, including increasing the amount of local news it provides in acquired markets.” Regarding “concerns about pricing and affordability,” Nexstar committed to offering pay-TV providers with which it has an existing retransmission agreement an extension of its agreement at the existing rates through Nov. 30, 2026. In addition, Nexstar committed to “equal opportunity employment and nondiscrimination.”
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