Nexstar at JPMorgan Conference: Strategic Moves in Broadcast Landscape

On Wednesday, 14 May 2025, Nexstar Media Group (NASDAQ:NXST) presented at the 53rd Annual JPMorgan Global Technology, Media and Communications Conference. The discussion highlighted Nexstar’s strategic focus on mergers and acquisitions, regulatory changes, and content expansion, while addressing challenges like subscriber attrition in linear television. The company remains optimistic about future opportunities despite these hurdles.

Key Takeaways

• Nexstar is pursuing M&A opportunities to expand its footprint, especially with The CW network.
• The company is optimistic about deregulation, which could lead to industry consolidation.
• Nexstar sees a positive outlook for political advertising revenue in 2026.
• The CW has increased its live sports programming, now 40% of its schedule.
• Nexstar is exploring the potential of ATSC 3.0 as a new revenue stream.

Financial Results

• 63% of Nexstar’s revenue comes from distribution, which is resilient to economic changes.
• 37% of revenue is from advertising, with 70% from local sources.
• Digital advertising makes up 20% of the advertising revenue.
• Services advertising is growing faster than goods-based advertising, at a six-point differential.

Operational Updates

• Nexstar is leveraging strategic debt-financed M&A to create value.
• The CW network now airs 400 hours of live sports content, contributing to a 41% increase in key demographics.
• News Nation’s awareness has risen significantly in the U.S., from 11% to 37-38%.
• The company is focused on a station-first programming strategy.

Future Outlook

• Nexstar expects strong political advertising revenue in 2026 due to key races in its markets.
• The company aims to grow its CTV inventory to meet rising demand.
• Nexstar is focusing on ATSC 3.0 technology as a potential revenue source.
• The goal is to achieve mid-teens billions of dollars in distribution revenue by the decade’s end.

Q&A Highlights

• Nexstar supports FCC deregulation to better compete with tech giants.
• Legal challenges are anticipated with potential FCC rule changes.
• The company expects a cooperative DOJ in merger reviews.
• 60% of subscribers are up for renewal by year-end.

For further insights, refer to the full transcript below.

Full transcript - 53rd Annual JPMorgan Global Technology, Media and Communications Conference:

Unidentified speaker: Are we good? Okay. We’ll get started. I’m pleased to be joined up here today by Perry Suk, founder, chairman and CEO of Nexstar Media Group, along with Leanne Gliha, executive vice president and CFO. Thanks, being here.

Perry Suk, founder, chairman and CEO, Nexstar Media Group: Thank you for having us.

Unidentified speaker: Great. So I’ll start with this. Perry, you’ve been a continuous champion of broadcast and its role in the media and entertainment ecosystem. Maybe you could just speak to the key pillars that underlie your viewpoint.

Perry Suk, founder, chairman and CEO, Nexstar Media Group: Well, from our perspective, everything we do starts at the foundation of the local station business, which is the service unit that feeds our local communities relevant content, facilitates B2C communication and also provides entertainment programming that is relevant to the community. So that’s where we spend our time and focus in the vast majority of our capital. And we think it’s the stickiest part. It’s the most unsexy part of the media ecosystem, but it’s the sticky part, those local relationships with advertisers and audience. And so we think there will be opportunity here in the very near future to expand our footprint of local stations.

And so that’s where I think we’ll continue to focus our time and capital is at the local end of the ecosystem.

Unidentified speaker: All right. On that note, so the current FCC chair, we think, has made very clear the importance of a healthy broadcast station market. There also appears to be generally, I think, more support across both aisles of Congress for deregulation. Curious of your view, what’s the significance of this moment? What’s different from Trump won, which ultimately didn’t have much in the way of structural change?

Perry Suk, founder, chairman and CEO, Nexstar Media Group: Well, I think the significance of this moment are and the difference from Trump one is that one party controls both houses of Congress, and with the executive branch basically has input over the regulatory agencies. So everything is in alignment. And I think the opportunity is right in front of us in terms of removing these antiquated regulations that hamstring our business from competing at least on a domestic U. S. Basis with the tech behemoths that are competing for advertisers, competing for eyeballs, competing for money and content in our local marketplaces.

And that argument of local journalism versus big tech has really resonated, as I think you said, on both sides of the aisle. And who knows what will happen in the midterms, whether there will be continuous control of one party of both houses of Congress. So I think our window is right in front of us, but is potentially finite in terms of the opportunity to act. So our company is moving with a sense of urgency to try and take advantage of the opportunity while it’s in front of us.

Unidentified speaker: Perry, assuming we got a removal of the national ownership cap and end market duopoly rules, how do you kind of envision the industry evolving over the next five to ten years, right? Do we kind of get to a place at some point where we have the networks and their stations then maybe a handful of kind of very scaled groups?

Perry Suk, founder, chairman and CEO, Nexstar Media Group: Well, I think it’s an open question is whether you will still have the networks in their current iteration ten years from now. But I do think you’ll have a handful of very scaled local groups. A network is nothing more than connected distribution. And if we have that connected distribution, we might be able to influence or determine or sponsor our own national programming service to serve our stations, much as we’ve done with the CW. But I do think that there will be a coalition of a few willing that would like to expand a footprint to a near nationwide footprint of local owned and operated stations, and that will be the backbone of the industry going forward.

Unidentified speaker: On on practical matters, I think there’s likely legal challenge to consider in the FCC removing the cap as there often are with any FCC rule changes. And then with the duopoly rules, right, how do you think the DOJ may kind of interject and define advertising markets, right? And how are you kind of thinking about maybe the practical limits of what this could mean for consolidation?

Perry Suk, founder, chairman and CEO, Nexstar Media Group: Well, I think as with any executive order or any action taken, there could be potential legal challenges. Whether they prevail or not, I think is open for debate. Is a current court case that if the decision goes down in favor of the industry, that would eliminate the current rules. And so that would not be subject to judicial review and it would be at that point game on or game over in terms of any regulatory uncertainty. But I think in terms of the DOJ, our GR team has been in touch with folks at the DOJ and we have yet to find one that believes that broadcast television advertising is its own discrete market as it’s currently defined today.

So I think that you will see a cooperative DOJ in merger review, as you have seen with the credit card merger and others, that there will be a different interpretation of market which should create an opportunity to expand beyond just the television market as a discrete market, consider all forms of advertising, in which case there’s really no issue.

Unidentified speaker: So the goal, it would seem to be, is not just to get it defined as a video market, right, but maybe just anything that would touch on a local basis?

Perry Suk, founder, chairman and CEO, Nexstar Media Group: Well, Amazon is organizing a local sales force in local markets right now as we speak, and they’re calling on the same people that we call on. So to say that we don’t compete with one another is not recognizing the realities of the marketplace. So I think everybody gets that and no one can really defend the current rules. It’s just a question of getting people to the point of either administering rules differently or eliminating the rules as an impediment.

Unidentified speaker: So Nexstar has a strong track record of value creation through strategic debt financed M and A. Just recognizing that we are in a bit of a different interest rate environment, media environment relative to prior cycles. What types of transactions or deal structures right now do you find most compelling?

Leanne Gliha, executive vice president and CFO, Nexstar Media Group: Yeah, maybe I’ll take that. I mean, I think that if you look at our track record historically on M and A, you kind of go back to the beginning of 2011 to 2019, which was that last consolidation wave, we did 40 deals. Our stock price went from $4.55 to 150 to 170 that it is today. We did that through generating significant synergy and through mostly from a debt financing perspective. And look, think we are mindful of the fact that interest rates are higher now than they were before.

Our multiples are lower than they were before, but I think we can still factor all of that in and have a successful transaction that’s going to be accretive on the other side of things. In terms of the types of deals that we like to look at, obviously creating shareholder value, creating accretion is first and foremost the most important. I think if we have our pick of the types of assets we like, opportunities to put the CW network somewhere, bigger markets, markets where we can double up in the market if we do have that regulatory relief. Those are the things that are going to be most interesting to us. But as you all know, you can’t necessarily just get what you want.

You also have to have a willing counterparty, and you have to look at the deals that are going to be presented to you in the way that that seller wants to also transact. And so there’s got to be a meeting of the minds with respect to all of those things.

Unidentified speaker: Maybe as a follow on, how do you kind of frame the current opportunity for synergy capture? Right? Last cycle retrans optimization was a big factor. Is that still the case, or is it more kind of shifting to cost efficiencies or are there kind of both to I

Leanne Gliha, executive vice president and CFO, Nexstar Media Group: think they’re all there to consider. I think if you sort of just take our playbook, you kind of start from the top down. Number one is the retrans synergies. We have the ability to step up any targets, retrans if it is lower to our level. And that’s a very nice synergy to have.

It’s easy to achieve. And we do think that there is still that opportunity. We do think the deals that we’ve, or companies that we’ve looked at have always been a little bit lower than where we are, and so there’s opportunity from that perspective there. And then I think we secondarily will look at if you buy something in market, and that’s actually where I think there’s probably potentially new synergy in this environment as opposed to the past. If we are able to own two big four stations in a market, there’s going to be an opportunity to really operate those two stations off of one infrastructure, which can create more synergy than we necessarily were able to do in the past.

We’ve had some relationships with some of our partners that enable us to get some of that synergy, but not all of it. So that could be incrementally interesting in this go around. We also look at just sort of our regular way efficiencies, how do we operate a station and what’s the way we do it and how does somebody else do it. There’s generally opportunities for expense reduction there. And then kind of just continuing down, we have corporate overhead synergies if it’s a large scale company.

We could, you don’t need two CFOs and two CEOs that can be benefit. And then I think the last piece of it, which is still operative is what we can benefit from after we do the deal, which is the scale synergies. Once we have created more scale and more opportunities, we can do different things like Perry was talking about on the programming side, and just the leverage that we will have in any future negotiations. So we still feel like the core thesis in terms of what we did in the last acquisition cycle is intact. And it may be slightly different in terms of the composition and how the numbers all come together, but we’re bullish about that opportunity.

Unidentified speaker: I’m curious, you mentioned large markets as an opportunity. As you kind of push into those top DMAs, you do start to push up against the networks and their station footprints. Any sense, Perry, how they might kind of approach? And would any of them be willing to divest stations? Does that open opportunities for you?

Perry Suk, founder, chairman and CEO, Nexstar Media Group: Yes. I don’t know what goes on in the minds or the boardrooms of those companies at this point in time. If you look at our station footprint, about half of our markets we have some form of an economic benefit from more than one station. Where we don’t is in the top 10 markets where we have CW affiliates that, for purposes of definition, are not a big four affiliate and could be paired with a big four affiliate pretty easily. But there has to be an actionable And right now there isn’t one, and we don’t really know in the future if there will be one that is actionable and at a price that makes sense for us from an accretion and deployment of capital perspective.

Unidentified speaker: Right. And to be clear, if you have a duopoly of a big four in CW, that doesn’t prevent you from then having another big four.

Perry Suk, founder, chairman and CEO, Nexstar Media Group: Well, there’s also a rule that limits ownership of two stations to a market that we expect could be repealed along with the other impediments to ownership that would allow you to own more than two stations in a marketplace. So, yeah, I think if you assume the new rule is there are no rules, it opens up an entire footprint here that is currently not available to us. Got it.

Unidentified speaker: So in general, the FCC, or at least the chair, we think, adopted a stance more in favor of stations over the network partners. You operate on both sides, so I would be curious kind of your view of how you think this could maybe impact network station relationships.

Perry Suk, founder, chairman and CEO, Nexstar Media Group: Well, I think that will evolve over time, right? And I think one of the things that stations would like to have is the ability to negotiate directly with virtual MVPDs as opposed to just opting in or not opting in to a network deal. And so I think that could be the byproduct of other discussions that are going on that those rights will ultimately revert back to the stations. So I think that is a net positive. And I think that, again, local journalism happens at the local level.

It doesn’t happen at the network level. The way we’re trying to frame the survival and the future of our business is local journalism competes with big tech, and we need strong, healthy companies and the ability to grow our footprint to compete more effectively with big tech, at least on a nationwide basis. So that’s the argument that we are making. And again, I think it’s been received pretty well at the regulatory agencies as well as both sides of the aisle on the hill. And so I think that you’re right that the current administration looks more favorably on local stations as more honest brokers of information than national networks that may have bias in their reporting.

Unidentified speaker: Got it. All right. While we’re on this topic, have to ask. Recently, there was reports of an idea maybe floated by Commissioner Symington to put a cap on reverse retrans payments. Do you see something like this as even kind of, one, feasible and then, two, even desirable, right, given in my head there would be a second order effect of kind of limiting network buying power for sports rights?

Perry Suk, founder, chairman and CEO, Nexstar Media Group: Well, I would tell you that I don’t think that there is unanimity of thought around Commissioner Symington’s proposal. It was an op ed. And so I think he’s certainly entitled to an opinion and a point of view. It would be great for us, obviously, in the short term. We don’t currently earn 30% of distribution revenue for the CW, and we would love to ratchet down to that as a station operator.

I just don’t know that, again, without unanimous support of the idea that it goes any further than the discussion phase it’s in now. Maybe

Unidentified speaker: let’s shift gears a bit. So while subscriber attrition remains a headwind for linear television, we have seen recently the introduction of skinnier bundles and offerings that integrate streaming services. I’m curious, do you think these models can bend the curve on cord cutting? Or are there other changes in packaging that you’d like to see?

Leanne Gliha, executive vice president and CFO, Nexstar Media Group: We think it’s a great start. I think those are new bundles that have created more value for the consumer. In the case of the charter bundle where they’re bringing back in those direct to consumer services, you’re really getting a lot of value for your dollar, much more so than you were before. With respect to the skinny bundles, for the most part we’re in those, and so that’s a benefit to the customer and a benefit to us, since we provide the programming that is the most popular programming. So I think those are two positive ways that we’re seeing potential for future reduction in the rate of attrition.

I think we’ve spoken previously, we feel like some of the survey data we have from a consultant that we work with called Altman Solon shows that the percentage of the people that are in the ecosystem, the pay TV ecosystem today that are not interested in sports or news is very small. It’s like 4% of the overall ecosystem, and that used to be like fourteen percent five years ago. So there’s a reason also just from a composition of the pay TV subscriber universe to expect or anticipate that we may have lower attrition because of that.

Unidentified speaker: Right, so maybe the universe is paired down to the point

Leanne Gliha, executive vice president and CFO, Nexstar Media Group: Okay.

Unidentified speaker: Alright. This week we saw pricing and packaging details for ESPN’s DTC product, named ESPN, and separately heard that Fox will launch Fox One this fall. So with these two services live, which I think would be before the NFL season, it will mean I think substantially all sports are now available without a pay TV subscription, not cheap, but available. So kind of curious how you factor that into your future expectations on pay TV attrition.

Perry Suk, founder, chairman and CEO, Nexstar Media Group: Well, think you’ll still have the vast majority of those offerings, and certainly those two offerings would be simulcast with a broadcast component. And so I think the cost, I do think they are aimed because it doesn’t make economic sense to cut the cord to be able to opt into one of those because then you have to reconnect with broadband. And so I do think it is going to be more of an add on product than an either or product. In the case of one of those two offerings, we have assurances that the local stations will be included as part of that. So again, if it’s a pay for product and we’re being paid to be there, that’s kind of an MVPD of some sort.

And so we’re relatively benign to net positive, I think, on those developments.

Unidentified speaker: Got it. Maybe just sticking with sports for a second, Perry. Always good to get your view on this. But we’ve seen leagues award packages or events to streaming recently, though it would be fair. Broadcast is growing share as well.

I think the NBA and NBC is a good example of that. How do you see the model for sports distribution evolving maybe over the next five years?

Perry Suk, founder, chairman and CEO, Nexstar Media Group: Yeah, I don’t think it will be either or in the main. I think that all college and professional sports leagues see the value and realize the value of a broadcast component. I think the NBA is exhibit one of that. I think NASCAR and the Xfinity series that CW has garnered is exhibit two that in the case of NASCAR, they turned down more money from a streamer to have broadcast reach to develop that product and audience. I think everybody understands that and gets that, but I don’t think that it’s a zero sum game.

I think that the prototypical league and or local team offering in the future will have a broadcast component to develop reach, will have a super fan component that may either be streaming or RSN like, where you pay a premium but you can see every play of every game. And then I think there will be a more general direct to consumer offering. But I think you’ll see all of those in an effective media strategy going forward. And so we I feel pretty good about that because broadcasting wasn’t always seen as a necessary component. But I think people now realize if I’m only on cable or I’m only on streaming, so think of the sports that are there, I think that nobody is happy about Apple TV and Major League Soccer and the distribution of those games.

So I think that we have a seat at the table in all of those conversations. And now it’s just is there a deal that makes sense for us as Nexstar and us as the CW as part of those discussions.

Unidentified speaker: All right. Maybe continuing on that point. A stat that stood out to us in your earnings calls that the CW is now programming four hundred hours of live sports content. I think that’s 40% of network time. You discussed Xfinity, but maybe you can expand on that or some of the other core rights you picked up.

And you have a distribution cycle coming up. How do you think this content is going to kind of factor into those renewals and the path to profitability at TW?

Perry Suk, founder, chairman and CEO, Nexstar Media Group: I think there’s two pieces of that. One is if you look at the schedule now, 40% of the entire schedule of the network is comprised of sports, and we’re in dayparts that we didn’t use to program before or the predecessor owners didn’t, which are weekend afternoons and evenings with live sports. And so people watch things live that are live, like live news, live sports, live event competition and event programming. So we feel very good about our pivot and the timing of pivot because I think everyone now is kind of caught up with that, that that is where you derive the value. But I would also look at the knock on effect of primetime, the evolution of our primetime schedule that used to be 100% scripted that now includes live sports, WWE on Tuesday night, which by the way beats Fox on a regular basis in the demos.

But if you just look at our prime time schedule, the full fifteen hours, we are up 41% season to date in 18 to forty nine and twenty five to 54 demos. There’s really no other network that can make that similar statement, broadcast network. And so continue to invest in the linear product when others have kind of pulled away for streaming and other things, we’re seeing the benefits of that. So we do think that it will manifest itself in our distribution discussions with our affiliates because we said we’re going to do this. We have great plans for the CW.

They said great. We haven’t seen any of it yet. We don’t know if it will work. And we’ll need some time to negotiate with our distributors to be able to generate the revenue to pay you. That all I think has taken place.

The NASCAR races that we have on Saturdays, It’s the first time in eleven years I think that the first dozen races have had over a million viewers per race on any platform, broadcast or cable. So people see the value in that. Our affiliates are kind of over the moon with what they have to sell. And so we would expect that they would increasingly support the network’s efforts to build the network out. We’re trying to change the definition from the big four to the big five, and that doesn’t happen overnight.

But when you’re competitive and when you’re beating Fox and NBC in prime time and you’re beating other sports on the weekend with your sports, it doesn’t happen every weekend, but it is happening now. I think that’s a green shoot and folks that are playing the long game will certainly want to support that and grow with the network as it grows.

Unidentified speaker: So on that vision, do you see somewhere not so far down the line, CW going for bigger or larger sports? And is there anything in the market you think that’s relevant to consider, like Major League Baseball or Pac-twelve? Is that kind of reconstitutes as a conference?

Perry Suk, founder, chairman and CEO, Nexstar Media Group: Yes. I think, again, we primarily are targeting sports that have been either exclusively or primarily on cable or streaming that would like the additional exposure of a broadcast network. Certainly, discussing ways to expand our relationship with the Pac-twelve beyond the extension of football for this season. And baseball is an interesting proposition. Obviously as we go into these discussions saying, we’re not going to be your highest bid, but we can provide your broadest reach.

And as an upstart network, we are, as I like to say, still playing moneyball. So I don’t see us being a topping bid in any rights negotiation. But we’ve added beach volleyball, we’ve added grand slam track, we’ve added bowling starting next year. And so we are continuing to experiment with things to see what resonates with the audience. And we’ve got a lot of sports on Saturday with our thirty three weeks of NASCAR, and that’s obviously where college football is primarily played.

We would look for opportunities to add additional sports on Sunday or maybe Friday night. And so opportunities that would blend in with that. We want to be very cognizant of our stations, local newscasts where they make the vast majority of their money as well as our successful affiliates. The network is there owned by a broadcaster, so it will be a station first programming strategy. By definition, it kind of dampens our interest in Formula One when you have to preempt a local news show on Saturday morning or Sunday morning that’s been very successful or maybe other programming commitments that those stations have.

So it’s a Jenga, right, that we’re trying to put together here, but those are all the elements that go into making the decision.

Unidentified speaker: Got it. Maybe just with respect to your wider distribution cycle, can you just remind the audience the percent of your overall footprint up for renewal in ’25 and just your confidence level in this cycle still achieving strong rate step ups?

Leanne Gliha, executive vice president and CFO, Nexstar Media Group: I’ll let you. Okay. Yeah, we’ve got about 60% of our subscribers that are up for renewal this year, most of it towards the end of the year. We still, I was just actually updating the numbers this morning. We still have a differential in terms of the amount of viewership that broadcast networks provide to the pay TV distributors versus the percentage of the total programming costs that the distributors or the affiliation fees that they pay to and the retransmission fees that they pay to the content companies.

And we still believe there’s a gap to be closed, and there’s an opportunity there to continue to grow that. Before

Unidentified speaker: I move to ads, I want to touch on News Nation. So the current political news cycle, I would think is a boon for the network. News Nation is down 20 fourseven. They held some major events recently. Perry, how do you think about the next step in scaling up the network?

Perry Suk, founder, chairman and CEO, Nexstar Media Group: Well, the distribution is there competitive with the other cable news networks. And from our perspective, we’re trying to grow awareness, which when we started the network four years ago, 11% of The United States knew what News Nation was. Now it’s 37%, maybe 38%. Among news viewers, it’s about half, but that means the other half we still have to introduce and educate as to what we offer. And I look at what we’re doing and the accomplishments we’ve made.

We sent two people to Rome to cover the installation of the new Pope. CNN sent 60. We are on Air Force One and in the White House Press Room now. We weren’t a year ago. And I think that adds credibility and validity to everything we’re doing.

And again, we leverage our local journalists across the country in 40 states where we have newsrooms and do business to continue to provide programming to the network. I continue to look, okay, well, talk about the president taking a plane from Qatar. Maybe the story is how come Boeing hasn’t been able to produce a plane, produce the new Air Force One that is way behind schedule? And so just trying to approach questions differently, reminding people that we concentrate on the heartland and the center of opinion and what are people talking about at their kitchen table and not just what happens in the Acela Corridor. No offense, but I mean that’s just one part of the country and there’s a whole lot more geography between the coasts that we want to focus on as well and give voice to people in those communities.

So it’s continuing to build awareness, continuing to cover news with a different perspective, and to offer stories that maybe you won’t see on other networks that are much more focused exclusively on politics.

Unidentified speaker: Advertising was very much top of mind for investors this earnings season. You know, much of the commentary we heard from media companies was sort of no sign of linear slowdown yet. Maybe can you speak to see can you speak to what you’re seeing across verticals, markets, channels?

Leanne Gliha, executive vice president and CFO, Nexstar Media Group: Yeah, I mean, I think that how you describe it is very much kind of where we are in terms of not really seeing kind of any major change versus what we saw in the first quarter. We reminded everyone on our earnings call, if you sort of look at our revenue composition, 63% of our revenue comes from distribution, which is fairly insulated from changes in the economy. And you have 37% that’s coming from advertising of that, we’ve got 20% that’s coming from digital, which has been a nice stable and growing business line for us. And the remaining 80% comes from a combination of national and local. And when you really sort of take a step back, 70% of our advertising revenue comes from local, which tends to be much more resilient than the national advertising spend.

And then if you also sort of cut it a different way, if you look at our overall advertising revenue, about only 40% comes from goods based advertising, which is much more potential for tariff impact, but we have 60% that’s coming from services. Our number two category is actually attorneys and that’s not going to be tariff impacted. So in terms of the last quarter, we saw impacts, negative impacts on auto insurance and sports betting because North Carolina was going live last year this time and not this year. But it’s there isn’t anything really I think to particularly glean from the overall category buildup other than we do see pretty much like I would say like a six point differential in terms of what services are doing versus goods, and services to the better.

Unidentified speaker: Six point differential in terms of the rate of growth?

Leanne Gliha, executive vice president and CFO, Nexstar Media Group: Correct.

Unidentified speaker: Yeah. And that’s a recent or that’s been kind of steady?

Leanne Gliha, executive vice president and CFO, Nexstar Media Group: It’s just I would would have to go back and look. Got it. Yeah.

Unidentified speaker: Okay. We’re about five minutes left. Does anyone in the audience want to ask a question? If you do, raise your hand. Quiet room.

Okay. We’re in an off year for political. But kind of given all that’s going on, I would think that’s things are setting up nicely for ’26, even ’28. Perry, any kind of early view here?

Perry Suk, founder, chairman and CEO, Nexstar Media Group: It’s kind of the way too soon forecast, but we do have an internal projection for 2026 that will be very stout. And again, you have to look at our geography. We’re in Ohio where J. D. Vance’s senate seat will be contested.

We’re in Pennsylvania where there will be Senate seats and governors. If you just look at our footprint, we’re in the battleground states for the twenty six midterms. We actually expect to see we saw more money in the first quarter than we anticipated, and that was based on one race, which was the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, and we only have stations in La Crosse and Green Bay, Two of the smaller markets in the state. That alone allowed us to beat our company’s political projection in the first quarter. And we see instances of that and there are advocacy ads that are coming up for the budget for prescription medication for, say, Medicare, Medicaid, whatever.

And so that would I think be a constant and the drumbeat. I think you’ll see people in certain statewide contests for ’26 begin to start to spend money in the fourth quarter. We tend to deliver on our political projections, and I tell people generally to bet the over, and I think you’ll see a repeat of that. But ’26 will be a substantial revenue contributor for us in political. And we hired a new director of political advertising, and her focus right now is making sure we have competitive CTV inventory because there’s been more demand for that in the last election cycle.

You could say those that used that maybe didn’t get elected, and so maybe that was a failed strategy, but I think we want to have a full suite of product offerings in the marketplace, and that’s one area where we needed to bulk up a bit, and that’s what we’re in the process of doing.

Unidentified speaker: I want to touch upon ATSC three point zero. I guess there’s a regulatory element to cover here, but more interested on where the industry stands in your view on developing commercial applications and kind of what’s your confidence in material revenue contribution in the near term?

Perry Suk, founder, chairman and CEO, Nexstar Media Group: Well, revenue contribution in the near term, I think it’s again, this is very much a case that you have to build the tollway before you can charge people to drive on it. I think that the FCC chairman is keenly aware that there is a revenue component to Treasury on this. There is a 5% gross receipts tax on non video uses of the spectrum. So as far as a pay for in budget discussions, I don’t think we’re there yet, but I do think the chairman recognizes that this could be a revenue contributor to the treasury. There’s also, you know, our country has no backup GPS system.

We’re the only industrialist country in the world that doesn’t have a backup to our GPS. And if the GPS goes out, that means not only your navigation doesn’t work, ATMs don’t work, gas pumps don’t work, surgical equipment doesn’t work. Everything needs timing, fleet management and things of that sort. So we have a proposal and our trade association put forth a notice or a petition for rulemaking on our backup GPS system, which is terrestrial based, which would be superior to two satellites, one primary, one backup, that could both be taken out by the same dirty bomb. So we think it’s in the national interest.

The DOT said it’s in the national interest. The President signed an executive order in his first administration to encourage development of a backup GPS system. And so that could be a use of the spectrum that is in the national interest that may accelerate the conversion to three point zero from one point zero, an actual mandate, perhaps a sunset date of one point zero and then a conversion date to three point zero that are all in the NAB’s petition. And again, we’re on record saying we think this could mean to the industry by the end of the decade what distribution revenue means to the industry today, which is mid teens billions of dollars of revenue. And I think that if we get the sunset in ’27 of one point zero, the simulcast requirement, and that conversion of the top 55 markets in ’28 with the rest in 02/1930, I think once that’s established, you’ll begin to see applications develop there.

But we’re in a spectrum consortium with Scripps Gray and Sinclair, and collectively those are the four largest owners of spectrum or licensees of spectrum in the country. And so it’s a near nationwide footprint. So the infrastructure is there. We just now need to move policy along to get to the point where we can make the conversion and begin to generate meaningful revenue.

Unidentified speaker: Got it. Okay. Guys, thanks so much for being here. You’re out of time. Alright.

Perry Suk, founder, chairman and CEO, Nexstar Media Group: Thank you.

Leanne Gliha, executive vice president and CFO, Nexstar Media Group: Thanks for having us.

Perry Suk, founder, chairman and CEO, Nexstar Media Group: Thanks for having us.

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