Returning to an issue that local TV station owners have railed about for years, Nexstar CEO Perry Sook said Donald Trump‘s election could help finally eliminate the cap on station ownership.
Under laws last updated two decades ago, before the streaming era, a single company cannot own stations with a combined reach to more than 39% of U.S. households. Sook and other heads of station groups (Nexstar’s is the country’s biggest) have long insisted that the rules were designed for a linear world and do not take into account the rise of tech companies in the TV business.
“We see the time being now,” the exec said during Nexstar’s third-quarter earnings call with Wall Street analysts. “We see it as a bipartisan issue. Republicans would see it as deregulation, good for business. Democrats, and in fact all people, would see it as an avenue to preserve local journalism.”
Sook noted that Nexstar has set up a government relations office in Washington and he himself has spent a considerable amount of time in the capital in recent months. Sook’s sentiments matched those of Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who earlier Thursday said Trump’s return could help usher in a new wave of “needed” M&A in the media business.
While he noted that adding more stations would be a “big opportunity” financially, Sook leaned into the issue of shrinking journalism resources. Local TV has continued to cover communities where local newspapers are either depleted or have shut down entirely. But it’s not getting any easier to contend with social media, YouTube and the like, he said.
“Every Congressman and woman I’ve spoken to in the last year does not want a future where their news is delivered by a chatbot off a server, hopefully from somewhere in this country but no one really knows,” Sook said. “So, what do we need to do to preserve local journalism? Well, you have to have strong companies that are producing that journalism. And they need to compete on an even playing field with big tech, who has unfettered access to every screen in your house, my house, my car, my pocket.”
He continued, “We think the republic has a vested interest in maintaining a free and independent press,” Sook said. “We see broadcast journalism remaining, or becoming, that last bastion of a free and independent press at the local level. There’s no one who can look you in the eye with a straight face and say the current regulations make any sense.”
The first Trump administration saw a stripping away of many regulations by the Federal Communications Commission, which is controlled by the party occupying the White House. And yet the ownership cap, for various reasons, remained in place. Once President Biden took office and the composition of the commission changed, the issue was tabled indefinitely. Sook and other station owners have argued for a total elimination of the cap, but a consensus had been building at one point toward a middle ground of around 50%.
The growing government relations team at Nexstar has the mission to “get someone to care” in Washington, Sook said. “That’s going to be our job is to deliver an impassioned plea and a logical case as to why these rules should be eliminated. We hope we’ll carry the day.”
