Tegna sees senior executive exits as court fight over Nexstar deal moves forward

Tegna continued to see turnover among its senior leadership ranks as litigation over Nexstar Media Group’s acquisition of the broadcaster remained ongoing.

The latest departure involved Adrienne Roark, chief content officer, who announced on LinkedIn that she had left the company after overseeing Tegna’s news and content operations. Her exit followed a series of executive departures reported in recent weeks, including CEO Mike Steib, Chief Financial Officer Julie Heskett, Chief Strategy Officer Ed Busby and Chief Experience Officer Dhanusha Sivajee.

Patrick Paolini, a former Fox Television Stations executive, began serving as Tegna’s CEO this week, succeeding Steib. According to reports, Paolini is expected to make additional changes to the company’s leadership team.

The management changes came after Nexstar completed its $6.2 billion acquisition of Tegna in March following approval from the Federal Communications Commission. However, a lawsuit filed by DirecTV and a group of state attorneys general led to a preliminary injunction that prevented the companies from integrating operations while the case proceeds.

Nexstar has appealed the ruling and sought an accelerated court schedule, with oral arguments expected to begin in August.

The company has argued that delaying integration could harm Tegna and the transaction.

Some Tegna executives have chosen to leave following the acquisition’s closing, with departures tied in part to contractual provisions and financial incentives associated with the merger.

In a statement, Nexstar said it was “grateful” to departing executives and thanked them for their service to the company, its stations and local communities.

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In her LinkedIn post, Roark highlighted Tegna’s efforts to expand local news production and digital operations during her tenure.

“After a remarkable run as chief content officer at Tegna, I’ve decided to move on, and I’m doing so with enormous pride in what we built together,” Roark said.

“We built a content organization that delivered real, meaningful news to tens of millions of people. We remade our stations into 24/7, all-screen newsrooms, adding 100 hours of original local news every day across the country,” she said.

Roark said she planned to pursue new opportunities focused on storytelling, audience strategy and content leadership.