Nexstar-Tegna merger on hold as court cites potential antitrust concerns

A federal judge on March 27 granted a temporary restraining order halting Nexstar Media Group’s $6.2 billion acquisition of Tegna, pausing the formation of one of the largest U.S. broadcast station groups.

The order, issued by U.S. District Judge Troy Nunley, prevents Nexstar and Tegna from integrating operations for 14 days while the court considers whether to impose a preliminary injunction. The judge scheduled a hearing for April 7.

Nunley sided with DirecTV, which filed suit to block the merger on antitrust grounds. He wrote that DirecTV demonstrated “a likelihood of success on the merits” and that allowing the transaction to proceed could result in “irreparable harm.”

The ruling requires Nexstar to keep Tegna operating as a separate, independently managed business and prohibits the sharing of competitively sensitive information, including details related to retransmission fee negotiations.

DirecTV argued that the combined company would gain increased leverage to raise retransmission consent fees charged to pay TV distributors, costs it said would likely be passed on to consumers. The company also warned the merger could reduce local competition and increase programming blackouts.

In the order, Nunley wrote that Nexstar and Tegna “do not contest this merger will increase Nexstar’s bargaining leverage to extract higher fees.”

Nexstar has maintained that the acquisition is necessary to compete in a shifting media landscape, where advertising revenue has increasingly moved to digital platforms. The company has said the scale of the combined entity would support greater investment in local news and programming.

The merger had received approval from the Federal Communications Commission and the Justice Department prior to the court action. Nexstar announced it had closed the transaction shortly after those approvals.

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The combined company would include nearly 260 full-power television stations and reach approximately 80% of U.S. TV households, according to company estimates.

Separate legal challenges to the FCC’s approval of the deal have also been filed by a group of states and industry stakeholders in a federal appellate court.