‘We are the anti-fake news.’ Nexstar appeals to Trump while seeking a merger with Tegna.
Usually — and these are unusual times — when media companies buy and sell each other, the paperwork they file with the Federal Communications Commission reads more like a legal brief: dry, technical and anchored in facts and statistics meant to justify the transfer of broadcast licenses.
That’s why Nexstar’s filing with the FCC this week is noteworthy. Nexstar chair and CEO Perry Sook went out of his way to praise President Donald Trump while asking regulators to approve a $6.2 billion deal to buy rival Tegna. The merger would make Nexstar by far the country’s biggest owner of local TV stations and would require the government to relax long-standing rules limiting station ownership. And Nexstar is pushing the FCC to move quickly, something the agency rarely does.
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