Nexstar Media Group | |
Formerly called
|
Nexstar Broadcasting Group, Inc. (1996-2017) |
Public | |
Traded as | NASDAQ: NXST |
Industry | Broadcast television |
Founded | Irving, Texas (1996) |
Founder | Perry A. Sook |
Headquarters | Irving, Texas |
Area served
|
United States (Nationwide) |
Key people
|
Perry A. Sook (Chairman, President and CEO) Timothy Busch (President) Brian Jones (Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer) Thomas E. Carter (Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer) |
Products | Television stations |
Revenue | $896,4 million USD (2015) |
$17.5 million USD | |
$83.6 million USD | |
Owner | Shareholders (controlling) |
Number of employees
|
2,230 (2011) |
Divisions | Lakana |
Website | www |
Nexstar Media Group is a publicly traded American telecommunications company headquartered in Irving, Texas. The company's portfolio consists of 171 television stations across the U.S., most of whom are affiliates with the four "major" U.S. television networks located in small to medium-sized markets. It also operates all of the stations owned by an affiliated company, Mission Broadcasting, under local marketing agreements.
Nexstar Media Group was founded as the Nexstar Broadcasting Group in 1996.
The first television station bought by Nexstar was WYOU in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Nexstar bought WYOU from locally owned Diversified Communications. Nexstar promptly fired two beloved anchors and laid-off several long-term staff-members. Perry Sook promised that WYOU would be Nexstar's flagship station and he kept an office right off the newsroom for many years. In one memorable moment in Sook's time there, the unedited version of the Robert Mitchum movie The Big Sleep aired on a Sunday afternoon. The production staff was amused to see Sook running down the hallway from his office to the Master Control suite when full frontal nudity appeared on screen during the movie.
In 1998, Nexstar purchased WBRE-TV in Wilkes-Barre, PA. Because this was in the same market as WYOU, WYOU was 'sold' to Mission Broadcasting. This began the first ever 'Shared-services' agreement between stations. WYOU's sales staff was kept in Scranton while the production and news operations were moved to WBRE's offices in Wilkes-Barre. WYOU's staff who were not laid-off were fired by Nexstar, hired by Mission and eventually re-hired by Nexstar. Mission Broadcasting then paid Nexstar to operate and control the production and news gathering operations while Mission kept the sales and management team.
In 2003, Nexstar acquired Quorum Broadcasting (owner of 10 television stations).
On March 20, 2009, Nexstar operated television stations that were owned by Four Points Media Group, through and outsourcing agreement. However, on September 8, 2011, Sinclair Broadcast Group announced its intent of purchasing the Four Points stations outright and took over the MSA for the stations that October upon Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approval of the deal (the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) gave final approval of the group deal on December 21, and the Sinclair purchase of the Four Points stations was completed on January 1, 2012).