Nexstar at Citi’s Conference: Strategic Moves and Expansion Plans

On Wednesday, 03 September 2025, Nexstar Media Group Inc (NASDAQ:NXST) presented at Citi’s 2025 Global Technology, Media and Telecommunications Conference. The company outlined its strategy focusing on local broadcasting assets, the benefits of scale, and the pending acquisition of TEGNA. While the leadership expressed optimism about growth opportunities, they acknowledged regulatory challenges and market competition.

Key Takeaways

• Nexstar is focusing on building local assets and leveraging scale.
• The TEGNA acquisition is a strategic move to enhance market position.
• Regulatory changes are crucial, with Nexstar advocating for deregulation.
• NewsNation and the CW network are pivoting towards live sports programming.
• Financial synergies from the TEGNA acquisition are expected to be substantial.

Strategy and Competitive Advantage

Nexstar is committed to strengthening its local broadcasting footprint, which CEO Perry Sook describes as "the least sexy but most sticky part of the ecosystem." The company maintains relationships with over 40,000 small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), providing a buffer against market fluctuations. This local focus serves as a competitive moat, making it hard for others to replicate Nexstar’s presence.

The pending acquisition of TEGNA is expected to boost Nexstar’s control over 20% of local TV station inventory, potentially reaching 80% of the US population. The company anticipates its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) to rival that of media giants like Fox and Paramount.

Regulatory Environment

Nexstar is actively pursuing regulatory changes, particularly the elimination of the FCC’s national ownership cap. With a pro-deregulation stance, the company is capitalizing on the current political climate, which it views as favorable for such changes. CEO Perry Sook emphasized the urgency of this initiative, especially with upcoming midterm elections.

The company believes that deregulation will allow it to better compete with Big Tech and maintain a free and independent local press. Anticipated changes in ownership rules could be announced by the FCC before the year’s end.

TEGNA Acquisition & Synergies

The acquisition of TEGNA is projected to generate $300 million in synergies within the first year. With 35 overlapping markets, Nexstar plans to implement best practices and rationalize corporate costs. The company is using cash flow generated before the deal closes to fund the transaction, supported by a detailed integration playbook.

NewsNation & CW Network

NewsNation, launched as a counter-programming strategy, aims to provide centrist and balanced news coverage. It has become the fastest-growing cable network, with awareness at 40% across the US. The CW network, under Nexstar’s majority control, is shifting towards live sports programming, having invested $1 billion in sports rights. Recent NASCAR broadcasts have seen significant viewership growth.

Conclusion

For a deeper understanding of Nexstar’s strategic plans and insights from the conference, readers are encouraged to refer to the full transcript below.

Full transcript - Citi’s 2025 Global Technology, Media and Telecommunications Conference:

Unidentified speaker: Here today, including, Perry Sook, CEO, and Leanne Gliha, CFO. Thank you both for coming.

Perry Sook, CEO, Nexstar: Thank you for having us today.

Unidentified speaker: No. It’s great. I’m super excited about this conversation just because it seems a little bit different given how much interesting stuff is going on at your firm right now, given the pending transaction. So I I would just like to start with a with a high level question. If I step back and look at the last, I don’t know, five years, six years, all of the big media companies went out and did acquisitions.

They focused on national assets, didn’t really buy any more TV stations so far. You guys took a different tact. You focused on your local assets. So talk about that. What is it that you see that the rest of the media ecosystem doesn’t see?

Like, what undergirds your strategy?

Perry Sook, CEO, Nexstar: Well, we we built the company from from the bottom up with with television station acquisitions.

Unidentified speaker: Yes.

Perry Sook, CEO, Nexstar: The outgrowth of our ownership in the CW and and the creation of NewsNation have all been because of the foundation of the local stations. It is the as I said in a on an investor call earlier in the quarter, it is the least sexy but most sticky part of the ecosystem. You know, we have 1,800 sellers that have relationships with, you know, over 40,000 different SMBs across the country, and and and we have personal relationships with both the viewers and the advertisers. We’re a branded entity delivering programming into their home, delivering news and information, delivering other network programming into their home, but it’s you know, nobody goes home to watch a Nexstar station. They go home to watch, you know, News eight in Tampa or, you know, Jet TV in Erie, Pennsylvania.

So, we think those relationships are durable, they’re sticky, and, it’s that last mile connectivity. You know, networks can’t deliver other networks can’t deliver their programming into the home, except through our our signal now now maybe with the streaming, product. But, we we believe that, again, being the company specializing in building local assets, you know, that that’s the part of the business that will be the most durable. That’s really hard to build a competitive product to that when you think of the money we spent on property, plant, equipment, people, you know, to to build a staff and try and replicate what we do. Patch tried it.

Right? And it was kind of a miserable failure. And so that existing infrastructure, we think, is is is is a competitive moat and and an area we just chose to specialize in that part of the of the pool and and become expert at it and to build our our franchise and our fortress, you know, at the local level.

Unidentified speaker: And do you think that that the relationships you have and the assets you have, do you think it’s more differentiated on the advertiser side, or do you think it’s more differentiated on the the the programming as it manifests itself with retransmission fees or both?

Perry Sook, CEO, Nexstar: I I think both. I mean, you know, advertising, we have 40,000 SMBs that we do business with. If you look at national advertising, it’s controlled basically by, you know, a handful of holding companies that, you know, spend concentrated amounts of money across national assets, whether they be digital or national. And, you know, the the the pool isn’t that deep, but the dollars are large. And so we think that having a longer tail of relationship with advertisers is more more durable and and potentially offsets, you know, you know, certain categories coming in and out of of of favor.

We’re not immune from advertising being a cyclical business.

Unidentified speaker: Sure.

Perry Sook, CEO, Nexstar: But, but but we’re somewhat insulated given that, a lot of our advertising comes from professional services as opposed to goods that could be subject to tariff or or things of that sort. I think on the distribution level, it’s it’s, I think, interesting to note that our product is and always has been available outside of the pay TV ecosystem for free Yes. Called broadcast television. We’re the original fast channel. And and so but but cable operators and satellite operators and virtual MVPDs still pay for our programming because of the ubiquitous reach that it has of the popularity of our local news and the fact that there’s no nobody else doing local news in any material way in our markets except for local local broadcast TV.

We think that is the last bastion and why it’s important and special.

Unidentified speaker: What do you think will will if you had to take a guess at what will happen to local TV station assets over the next few years, there was a I think it was Hollywood Reporter article that pointed out that maybe Fox might get bigger, Paramount might get bigger. You expect others to sort of follow your path and sort of realize the power of of these local assets?

Perry Sook, CEO, Nexstar: Well, I think there’s, you know, mulling the idea and actually, you know, affecting a transaction. And and, you know, we have been the biggest buyer of broadcast television stations, you know, assuming that our transaction to acquire TEGNA is approved, which we do, you know, we will control in excess of 20% of the local television station inventory in the in The United States and reach 80% of The US population. It would be hard for any other station owning entity to to build a company of that size and scope with any kind of quality assets that have, you know, anything other than de novo news operations or things of that sort. So we think there’s a somewhat of a first mover advantage. There’s also who has the balance sheet to be able to do what we have done and been able to do and will continue to do.

So I think a lot of those factors go into it, but it doesn’t surprise me that that CBS and Fox might express an interest in expanding their distribution of their network asset. But but, again, that’s from the top down. Let’s find a way to control more of our our network distribution rather than building a fortress of local television stations, which, again, you know, whether we distribute over the air through a pay service, through a CTV app or or or or digitally, you know, our mission is the same. We’re we’re a local service business that produces local content. That’s our product.

That’s what people wanna see. We pass through other product that we rent, but, we also help local businesses sell stuff. And I think that will always be a business regardless of the distribution technology, which is why we put so much money into it.

Unidentified speaker: Okay. So remind me the year that you you started in this local TV business. What year did you what did you own the first?

Perry Sook, CEO, Nexstar: The well, my first company, I started in ’91, but Nexstar started 06/17/1996.

Unidentified speaker: ’96. Okay. So there were there were two big transactions that you did. Right? You did Media General and Tribune.

This would be the third big one, at least. What have been the lessons that you’ve learned in terms of the power of scale? Because, clearly, your North Star is scale. Is that does that manifest itself in lower operating expenses? Is it negotiating leverage?

Is it some advantage that you feel like you get on the advertising side? Where what what is this? Because clearly that you see a big benefit, but just unpack it a bit.

Perry Sook, CEO, Nexstar: I would say all of the above, but I’ll let Okay. Her her color on it is.

Leanne Gliha, CFO, Nexstar: I mean, yeah, we’ve seen the benefits over the years. You’ve seen it in our numbers. You’ve seen the growth in our revenue really driven by distribution revenue growth. We’ve seen we’ve been you’ve seen our ability to rationalize corporate costs. We’ve seen our ability to implement best practices across our markets, know, and really kind of become a bigger player in an ecosystem that’s, know, filled with really large companies.

But I mean, if you look at us, you know, we are the largest local broadcaster today at about $5,000,000,000 of revenue. Right. But we are a fraction of the size of the a lot of the people that we do business with, a lot a lot of the larger media and telecom companies, and we’re a fraction of a fraction of the size of these big tech companies that are out there that are, that we that we increasingly compete with. But, you know, we think we bring something to bear that they can’t bring to bear, right? We have this great ability to provide the broadcast distribution model to these big networks, to the sports organizations that are looking for ubiquitous coverage and the broadest reach that they can have.

We also bring really phenomenal local news programming that’s incredibly important that people watch. And if there’s a tornado in your city, a flood, any breaking news, you want to be tuning into our stations. And we feel like the benefit of the scale is really sort of being able to bring all of that together and really provide a better platform for us, a better ability for us to negotiate. We still believe you saw this in our investor deck, we are still underpaid relative to the value that we bring. We estimate based on the Kagan data that we have about broadcast in general provides about 41 of the viewership for these distributors, and we only are in comparison to cable, and we are only getting paid about 29% of content expenses that the distributors are paying.

So there ’s upside with respect to our ability to continue to monetize that. And we think with this TEGNA transaction, this will continue to really grow our reach, solidify our local news organization, really enable us to continue to benefit from those same sort of scale synergies that we’ve had in the past, continue to implement the cost cuts, continue to be able to drive our revenue figures. And look, on a pro form a basis, we’re going to have EBITDA that will rival, be in the sort of same ZIP code as a Fox and a Paramount, and that’s going to hopefully open up a whole new slew of opportunities that we haven’t even really started to think about yet. Now with that scale, what can we do to you know, streamline the ability for agencies to buy our advertising? What can we what other programming opportunities are there out there?

You know, there’s there’s a whole, you know, other set of opportunities and possibilities, in addition to what we’ve been able to accomplish and see the benefit of the scale historically with with with, you know, sort of the three areas of, you know, corporate operating expense and retrans synergies.

Perry Sook, CEO, Nexstar: And I I would say distribution is totally about scale. And we come to the market with a a scaled offering of channels and content that people actually want. Yeah. And so it is it it is evident even in discussions that have taken place since the transaction announcement that the increased scale, you know, gives us increasing leverage for either parity in negotiations or, you know, it makes the nuclear option just that much more untenable for distributors, networks, and other things. And so, you know, it’s a symbiotic relationship.

We all need each other, and and I think the bigger we are, the more those conversations are constructive, you know, and and and we can think about other things that we can do on a going forward basis with one another rather than, you know, fighting against one another.

Unidentified speaker: You used the word parity when you gave that answer. You mean parity and scale relative to the pay TV firms or the networks?

Perry Sook, CEO, Nexstar: In the traditional ecosystem, as Leanne mentioned, you know, with a company that has EBITDA the size of Fox or Okay. Skydance Paramount, you know, and and and distribution, you know, at the at at the at the owned and operated level that is a multiple of what they produce for themselves, those discussions themselves, I think, will become a lot more level whether it relates to virtual MVPDs or other things over time. Where we are still a fly speck is in relationship to big tech and Right. Those counterparties, you know, that we, you know and and and their media pieces that we interface with. You know, we, you know, still have problems getting the attention of of big tech, you know, for certain discussions we wanna have.

And, again, they care much more about engagement than accuracy and, you know, that’s why they’re not good stewards of local information and why we think there is a a a and and and vested interest in maintaining a free and independent press at the local level, primarily provided by local broadcast. Understood. So as you pursued scale, I assume there were a number of

Unidentified speaker: TV station assets that you could have considered other than TEGNA. Can you just spend a second and talk about what was it that put TEGNA at the top of your list? What was it that was unique about that collection of assets?

Leanne Gliha, CFO, Nexstar: I mean, we we looked at, you know, we we looked at everything. We looked at the, general landscape, and I think the things that were very attractive about the Technic acquisition were, you know, Technic has got 51 markets, 35 of them overlap with our markets. So we felt like that was a great opportunity from a synergy perspective and ability to really enhance our local presence from that perspective. They also have a significant concentration in sort of larger size markets. And so the larger size markets are there’s more opportunity in those markets.

There’s a lot of work that goes into running a business. So just as much work at a smaller size DMA as there is in a larger size DMA. So it’s just a much more efficient process to to have larger markets in general. So that was very attractive to us. And I think the scale of the business, I mean, was a, know, it’s a large scale business that we were able to kind of piece it together.

So all of those things kind of came together. Really made a lot of sense when you looked at the overall landscape of what was out there. I think the other piece of it is it’s also you kind of have to as I always say, you can have an ideal list of things that you wanna go for, but there also has to be a willing counterparty. Sure. And this was an opportunity where there’s a willing counterparty.

Unidentified speaker: That’s great. What what about integration lessons? Have there been things that you would have done differently as you integrated, you know, I don’t know, whatever the Tribune, whatever last one, you know, where you said, wow. We could have done that a little bit better that you think will go smoothly, or do you feel like, no. We execute we set out a plan.

We execute against that plan. It’s the same plan every time, and this is more cookie cutter than we might imagine.

Perry Sook, CEO, Nexstar: I I think the, the way I would think about that is the company has done literally 40 acquisitions in the almost thirty years we’ve been in business. Are we better at it on you know, now than we were, you know, thirty years ago? Have we learned along the way? I think we have. I think what we have developed though, to your point, is a is a pretty well defined playbook Right.

How to do this, how to manage the interim period while you’re waiting for regulatory approval. I had a four hour meeting with with folks yesterday on on that. And just it’s, you know, the communications process, management, coming together of stations and markets where, you know, historically, we were trained to compete against each other, and now we’re supposed to play nice in the same sandbox. Right. How am I gonna do that?

How you know, help me think about that. And so it’s it’s redefining the market and the opportunity and the and the opportunities for growth, realizing and and maintaining that there will always be room for exceptional performers. Right? Yeah. Not so much for marginal performers.

And we find that oftentimes they will call their own number before, you know, we get to that stage of the integration. But, you know, it’s it’s I I think people are attracted to our company and what we offer and what we’ve been able to do, not only within the industry, but for the industry, and our vision of growth in the future that, you know, I think it’s it’s an attractive place to be. And and and I think that we do have a pretty well worn I mean, Leanne has a team that performed a desk review on every one of the individual TEGNA business units. That’s phase one of the diligence, enough that we could announce and finance the deal. We now will go deeper, you know, and during dependency of the regulatory approval, and and that’s when we’ll get down to line item detail specific even more specific than we have today and and get into things like real estate.

Okay? We each own property in Dallas. Where are we gonna move? Which, you know, what what are we gonna sell? What are we gonna keep?

And we haven’t even talked about real estate, you know, synergies or proceeds that we potentially could realize because we’re still in discovery of of of that. But I think we, having done it so many times, it we don’t take any step of it for granted. But I think it is we have that muscle memory that it has become a real strength of our company that we can actually announce acquisitions, actually close on acquisitions we announce, and successfully integrate and, achieve the synergy number or, in most cases, exceed the stated synergy number at the time of the acquisition.

Unidentified speaker: So as you sit here today prior to TEGNA, you’re sort of at the cap. The FCC has this process underway where they’re gonna change the rules as it relates to the cap, but we don’t know what the what the final number is. Can and you guys have been very clear that you would be willing to execute or announce m and a before the paint was dry on these new FCC rules, and now here we are. So can you just paint just a a road map for investors of how you see this playing out between the interplay between whatever the FCC is gonna do, when you think those rules might become final and then what your response might be for this pro form a entity?

Leanne Gliha, CFO, Nexstar: Yeah. I mean, look, I think we’re the whole purpose of this process is really we’ve seen lots of good news coming out of the FCC, lots of support for reviewing the cap. You know, the commissioner put out the, you know, refreshing the record on the cap. The comments were due on August 22. So there’s a path to that cap being eliminated through that process.

We saw that the eighth circuit came out and basically said, hey, those rules with respect to not being able to own two of the top four rated stations in a market are really not valid. We saw the FCC come behind that and say, we actually agree with that. So we feel like we’re pushing on an open door a bit, and we’re really just trying to meet that regulatory moment where it is. And we’re and this is time is of the essence. Right?

We’ve got a a favorable administration here that is focused on, you know, pro deal. We’ve got the FCC that’s pro deregulation. And we think that bringing this deal can help kind of push that door open. We think we’ll have a good outcome with respect to the national ownership cap by the process that’s ongoing. It is within the FCC’s rights to waive existing rules that they have on the books.

So to the extent that we have two of the top four rated stations in a market, they could provide a waiver, if they so chose. And so we think that there is a path to being able to get this through. Time is of the essence here in terms of the changing, the the midterm elections coming up, and let’s try to you know, make this transaction, happen, you know, as quickly as we can.

Perry Sook, CEO, Nexstar: Are you I’ve spent a lot of time in DC talking with regulators and politicians and key functionaries in the administration about the need for deregulation, the need to maintain a free and independent press at the local level Right. The need to be able to compete with big tech on a level playing field, at least in domestic United States. And it’s a it it it it the the change in the administration and the attitude toward competition, free markets, and deregulation couldn’t be more stark. And so as Leanne says, we’re meeting this regulatory moment where it where it is right now, and it’s the Trump administration and Brendan Carr at the FCC that are pro deregulation, pro competition. And and and we think it’s a a unique moment in time where, you know, we’re all working together towards a a a common goal.

And so Okay. Time is of the essence because as time goes on, we begin to think about the next election and people get distracted. So we think there’s a sense of urgency to try and effect meaningful change, you know, before the end of next year and the midterm elections have have had happened. And and so that’s why we’re we’re very focused on on this outcome. And I think that you will see NPRMs coming out of the FCC perhaps as soon as this month.

Oh, really? Dealing with first the national ownership cap and then subsequently the local ownership rules. And I think both of those NPRMs should be in the public domain certainly before the end of the year. Okay. And so I think that, you know, again, we’re as Leanne says, we’re pushing on this open door and we’re we’re hoping to give folks in the regulatory community both both reason, but now motivation to to examine these rules.

And I can tell you that to a person, there is no one that I have spoken to in DC that can can justify the current regulations with a straight face.

Unidentified speaker: Right.

Perry Sook, CEO, Nexstar: Yes. These, you know, World War two era regulations serve the public interest and nothing has changed. You know?

Unidentified speaker: And Right.

Perry Sook, CEO, Nexstar: And the last time the national ownership cap was addressed was in 02/2004. So no one no one with a straight face said, well, nothing has changed in media in the last twenty five year or twenty two years. So I I think there there’s an obvious window that we’re going to attempt to step through together. Understood.

Leanne Gliha, CFO, Nexstar: And I would just add, this is sort of quintessential Periscope and and Nexstar in terms of, you know, over time, we’ve tried to, you know, evolve the business. You know, back in the nineties, he was the first to use GSAs and SSAs to improve our operating expenses. He was the first to get real payment for retransmission revenue. And, you know, here we are again, I think, with another calculated risk here on this transaction.

Unidentified speaker: That makes perfect sense. Can I drill down and talk about synergies for a second? So I think you you identified 300,000,000 of synergies under the TEGNA deal within the first twelve months. I think under the under the last big transaction you did, you sort of upsized the synergies maybe about 10%. I I know everyone’s gonna wonder if, you know, the 300,000,000 is gonna move up.

So can you just give a little bit of color about what that what the 165, I think, that moved a 185,000,000 under the Tribune? Was that sort of conservatism originally? Did you discover some stuff along the way? And it’s not a proper read across to say, oh, Anne just always, you know

Leanne Gliha, CFO, Nexstar: Yeah. Well, look, we we put out a number that we think is a valid number. It’s based on the 2025, synergy estimate. Okay. And it is you know, we did say it was gonna be substantially all.

We expect it to be achieved in the first year. I think with the Tribune transaction, as Perry said, what we typically do is we put together what we call a desktop analysis is very, very detailed. Let me tell you the number of line items we have on this desktop analysis, where we identify the synergies we sort of say, okay, here’s the plan. But you don’t really get the opportunity in these public transactions to go and sit at the local markets and actually do that detailed And so in the next phase, we’ll be doing that. And that’s how we were able to find additional synergies in the last round.

Okay.

Unidentified speaker: You said you’re going to use once this deal closes all of your free cash flow ex the dividend to pay down debt. What about the free cash flow in the before the deal closes? How should investors think about your

Leanne Gliha, CFO, Nexstar: Oh, yeah. I think we’re not going to we’re going to part of the source and uses of the transaction is to use that cash flow that we’re going to generate between now and close to fund transaction.

Unidentified speaker: Okay.

Leanne Gliha, CFO, Nexstar: That’s part of the, the sources and uses. And so we’ll likely just accrue cash on our balance sheet until until close.

Unidentified speaker: Okay. That’s great. Can I ask about News Nation? So you’ve made some big hires. I mean, I watch NewsNation a fair amount.

Perry Sook, CEO, Nexstar: Bless you. Tell your friends.

Unidentified speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. What what I mean, tell us tell us about NewsNation. What was your original ambition with the creation of NewsNation?

How do you think it’s going so far, and and what do you think comes next?

Perry Sook, CEO, Nexstar: Well, interesting that you asked that because, two days ago was the fifth anniversary of the launching of NewsNation, which started as a three hour a day, seven day a week primetime newscast and obviously has evolved now into a twenty four seven bonafide cable news source. It started as a counter programming strategy. When we bought Tribune, we inherited WGN America

Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

Perry Sook, CEO, Nexstar: Which had reruns of Blue Bloods and a couple of original shows which were, you know, financial flame outs. But I talked to distributors at the time of, you know, renewal of of distribution contracts for the stations which included WGN America. They’re like, you know, WGN America is one of 99, there are 99 general entertainment basic cable networks that I carry. And she’s and and I was told on more than one occasion, there’s nothing really special about this that I can’t get somewhere else. So I don’t really wanna carry it, but I sure as hell don’t wanna pay for it.

Right. And so what could we generate, you know, what we had was retrans revenue tied to a cable channel that was fully distributed, you know, basically on the basic tier because back to WGN America was the superstation that had the Cubs games, and so it’s had favorable channel position and universal carriage. What can we do with that asset, right, that we’re not doing today? And I said, well, I we employ 5,500 journalists around the country that produce local news in all of our markets, and we could use that as the backbone to launch a national news service. And it became apparent to me that the lane that was available was potentially the largest lane of centrist opinion, centrist, you know, views, balanced news coverage.

And and by the way, that’s what we do in our local markets every day. There’s no opinion pieces on local news. It’s just getting the information, getting it right, verifying its accuracy, and reporting it to the public, whether it’s weather, news, sports. And so taking that ethos and building a a cable channel on top of it, we started by taking a a what was the storage room at WGN television in Chicago, the Second Floor, and turning that into the headquarters, the news nerd center for for News Nation, build out a functioning newsroom, and build out a studio for broadcasting from there. Hired, I think, 200 people at the outset.

We now have over 600 people that work just for the cable channel News Nation supplemented by now, you know, these 5,500 journalists across The United States. And and it has it has worked exceptionally well. I mean, we have been profitable from day one because we had a distribution revenue system and an embedded ad sales team. So it wasn’t a start up even though the the programming was new. And, you know, last month we were, you know, we were the fastest growing cable network of all cable networks, fastest growing cable network over the previous twelve months.

So, you know, we currently have an awareness that hovers right around 40% of The US know what NewsNation is, which is why I say tell your friends. Of news viewers, that that that awareness is greater than 50%. But it’s clear that, you know, half the country really doesn’t know who we are, where to find us, or or and and so we use our local television stations. If you watch ads, whether they’re on pics here or at Tampa or in Dallas, they’ll list the channel numbers for the various distributors, how to find us. You can there’s an app.

You can go to the NewsNation app, it’ll say how to find NewsNation. But, you know, we’re growing awareness, and and we’re growing the product. I’m very proud of what we put on here. I do feel that we have balanced coverage. There are these independent services, whether it’s Ad Fontes or NewsGuard or whatever, that rank us as high in original reporting, most balanced coverage.

And and so we do have opinion shows or anchors in prime time who state their opinion, but they’ll also say it’s their opinion and and, you know, and and try and give balance to their opinion. Chris Cuomo’s forever saying to guests, well, tell me why I’m wrong, you know. And and so, you know, we’re trying to build on that that franchise that, you know, balance doesn’t have to be boring. And I think our stock and trade, you know, where we are at our best is during breaking news, you know, the LA wildfires, the Mhmm. The the floods in Texas.

We have people that are on the ground before any competing news organization can charter a plane to get a correspondent there. And we know the names of the streets. We know who the public officials are. And and I think that’s where we are at our at our best. And so we’re very you know, I’m often pleased but never satisfied at the progress that we’ve made.

And, you know, we continue to grow. We just concluded a very successful upfront, you know. And granted, we’re growing share in a contracting, you know, wired cable universe, but we are still growing share and that will carry us through the middle innings of the of of the ballgame. But I think the product has is on point, on mission for what we want it to be, And and now our job is just grow it and and bring in, you know, additional voices and additional interesting programming that we can build on our foundation along the way.

Unidentified speaker: Okay. And what about the CW? You got majority control of the CW. You did a big pivot there as well.

Perry Sook, CEO, Nexstar: Exactly. I mean, you know, I I still think broadcast networks are special. Right? And that was our thesis with the CW. You know, this is beachfront property that is kind of underdeveloped.

Unidentified speaker: It’s Right.

Perry Sook, CEO, Nexstar: Two hour a day. It was five days a week and then six days a week. We actually caused them to go to seven days a week with programming. And it was primarily scripted entertainment, you know you know, comic book shows if you will. Right.

Had a very loyal audience, but also a very small audience. And I said, well, you know, what can we do with this asset that reaches as many households as ABC, Fox, NBC? And and I so I said, well, you know, what are people watching on live TV? They’re watching live TV. They’re watching live news, live sports, live events, live awards, those kinds of things.

And so we made a very quick pivot to to live sports programming. But there had been zero hours of live sports and now it’s over 40% of the schedule. We spent a billion dollars on sports rights in about six months. NASCAR, ACC, Pac twelve, now WWE next. And and the, you know, again, the move from cable to broadcast is is pretty pretty exciting.

NASCAR, you know, our season to date numbers, we’re averaging over a million viewers per race. And individually doing the best numbers that any of those telecasts have done in the last seven or eight years. So think of the fragmentation in media that’s happened over the last seven or eight years, and we’re beating numbers from the good old days, if you will. It’s because we’re on broadcast. And one of the things that proved to me, you know, that I think we’re we’re right about this superior distribution back when Matt Brown was the head coach at North Carolina, we had an early ACC game on and and and we flexed it into prime time.

And he was interviewed as he’s running on the field and they said, Mac, how do you feel about, you know, tonight’s game? He said, we’re on network television in prime time. It doesn’t get any better than that. And so Bill Belichick might feel differently now after last week’s North Carolina game. But but but we we, you know, we’ve talked to all the sports leagues.

They all see broadcast being superior. Many of our rights deals were won even though we weren’t necessarily the highest bidder, but people wanted the broad Right. Reach and distribution, and and we still have room under the tent for more of that. I can also tell you that, you know, I think everybody now has realized, you know, oh, you know, televised sports is, you know, maybe Trump scripted entertainment. And so there’s the competition for rights deals is is a little bit more in intense.

And we’re still playing money ball, and we’ll continue to play money ball and play within ourselves to make sure that, you know, we can see a return on our on our investment in sports. But it’s already paid big dividends, not only for the network, but for our owned and operated stations that never had sports to sell that now have, you know can you imagine KTLA or Kline in San Francisco, you know, with Pac twelve football Right. You know, on a Saturday, where the port was reruns and movies and infomercials? Right.

Unidentified speaker: Do you think there’s more sort of sports that are out there that you could acquire the rights to?

Perry Sook, CEO, Nexstar: Well, they’re yes. You know, they’re all special situations. A lot of the major franchises are spoken for, but they’re also are, you know, holding company deals, if you will. You know, we acquired eight races from NBC last year in the Xfinity series that because they had the Olympics, they had no room for. Right?

And so there are those kinds of conversations whether it be, you know, baseball or basketball or hockey or things like that. And and I think that, you know, everybody knows that we’re open for business, you know. The first sports deal we did was with Live Golf which ended up not being a great product the way it’s constructed for television, but it let people know we had a shingle open, you know, hang hung out and Yeah. We were open for open for business which begat all of the other deals we did literally in about a six month period of time to establish the CW.

Unidentified speaker: That’s great. Well, Leanne, Perry, thank you so much.

Leanne Gliha, CFO, Nexstar: Thanks for

Unidentified speaker: the great yeah. Absolutely.

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