The Nexstar–Tegna merger is being challenged in the courts on a number of fronts, but in the meantime it’s the source of a political clash between California Governor Gavin Newsom and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr.
The merger, which would create a broadcast giant of nearly 260 stations across the country, got clearance from the FCC and the Justice Department last week. Nexstar then quickly announced that its deal to acquire Tegna had closed.
In giving the deal the greenlight, the FCC’s Media Bureau granted Nexstar a waiver from the agency’s national media ownership cap, which limits any one entity from amassing stations covering more than 50% of the country. The Nexstar-Tegna stations reach 80%.
“I think it’s a disgrace. I think Brendan Carr is a disgrace,” Newsom told a reporter earlier this week. “I think what’s going on in this country is a disgrace. Eighty percent of a household share, a waiver? This is the same Brendan Carr who has said he wants Dear Leader to have better coverage, or he is not going to approve or renew broadcast licenses.”
Newsom said that “this is the same Brendan Carr who celebrated Nexstar for trying to censor Jimmy Kimmel.” He added that it was “the kind of behavior that makes Putin blush.”
Last year, Carr warned broadcast stations after Kimmel made a joke about the response on the right to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. On a podcast, Carr said that “we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Hours later, Nexstar, along with Sinclair Broadcast Group, said that they were pulling Kimmel from their ABC affiliated stations. Disney-ABC also pulled the show, but restored Kimmel the next week. The two station groups brought Kimmel back after that.
Earlier this month, Carr threatened the licenses of broadcasters after President Donald Trump, in a Truth Social post, complained about the media’s coverage of the war in Iran. Carr linked to Trump’s post, and wrote on X, “Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions – also known as the fake news – have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up. The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.”
Responding to Newsom on Wednesday, Carr wrote on X, “Gavin Newsom isn’t standing up to me or for any legitimate interest. He’s simply doing the bidding of his liberal Hollywood donors—the billionaires in media who have no interest in the FCC holding them accountable to their statutory public interest obligations. They want free rein to distort the news, broadcast hoaxes, and serve their own narrow interests and in doing so force their radical worldview on Americans without any regard to their broadcast license obligations. Not anymore.”
Newsom responded, “Brendan Carr admits he will be censoring the press.”
On Thursday, Carr declined to say specifically who he was referring to when he referenced billionaires in media. He also didn’t identify specific instances where he believes that they were forcing their worldviews to an extent that was flouting public interest obligations.
“I think the further removed you are from the operation of a local broadcast television station, the more you see this wailing and gnashing,” Carr said at an FCC press conference. “If you talk to an actual broadcaster, they understand there’s a public interest. They understand there’s a news distortion policy, there’s a broadcast hoax rule. When I use that language, they know exactly what we’re talking about because it’s in FCC case law.”
But Anna Gomez, the sole Democrat on the FCC, said that what Carr is doing is “regulatory harassment, designed to make journalists and their corporate parents think twice before airing a story that this White House does not like.” She said that Carr was using a “vague public interest standard” to go after broadcast news and entertainment content, even though the FCC’s authority is limited due to the First Amendment.
“These threats are not grounded in law, and they would not survive judicial scrutiny, but that is the point,” Gomez said. “The threat is the point. Out of the many politically motivated investigations targeting perceived government critics, and not a single one has resulted in an enforcement action. Zero. The FCC is a paper tiger.”
Meanwhile, Carr told reporters that the Nexstar-Tegna merger may ultimately come before the full commission, having gotten the greenlight from an order issued by the agency’s Media Bureau staff.
“This was a decision by the staff. Staff decisions are initial decisions. They’re not final decisions,” Carr said. “There may, in fact, be a commission vote on this. There’s been an application for review seeking full commission review of that decision. That may happen.”
On Wednesday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, told Punchbowl News that he thought that the full FCC should have voted on the merger.
The FCC’s decision is being challenged in a D.C. federal appellate court by a coalition that includes Newsmax, DirecTV and a collection of state cable and broadband associations. The FCC on Thursday urged a judge to reject their effort to sideline the merger approval, defending the decision.
The FCC’s attorneys wrote, “As it explained, approval of Nexstar’s acquisition of Tegna will advance the Commission’s longstanding goals by allowing the combined entity’s stations to ‘continue and in fact expand their investments in local news,’ ‘compete more effectively in the modern media marketplace,’ and ‘counteract the growing imbalance of power between those local broadcast TV stations … and the powerful Big Four national programmers.’”
In separate actions, a coalition of states, including California, as well as DirecTV, are seeking a temporary restraining order to halt the Nexstar-Tegna merger, arguing that it violates antitrust law. The judge has yet to rule.
In a response to the lawsuit this week, Nexstar’s legal team argued that the states rely on “an unsupported market definition resting on internally contradictory allegations, ignores competition in modern media markets, relies on out- of-date and out-of-place DOJ settlements, offers no grounding in caselaw, misconstrues how retransmission negotiations occur, and improperly assert harms outside any cognizable market.”