8 states sue to block Nexstar, Tegna merger

A group of eight state attorneys general have filed a lawsuit seeking to block a proposed mega merger between Nexstar Media Group and fellow local broadcaster Tegna.

The deal, if approved by President Trump’s administration, would create the largest local broadcast group in the country and hand Nexstar control of local news programming in more than 70 percent of U.S. households.

The group of AGs, led by California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta, argued in the suit the transaction would put “more broadcast programming in the hands of fewer people, removing control from the communities they report to, cutting local jobs, and significantly impacting the delivery of news and other media content to Americans nationwide.”

Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, the suit alleges that the merger violates Section 7 of the Clayton Act, which holds that mergers which substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly are illegal.

Other states joining the lawsuit include New York, Colorado, ‌Connecticut, ⁠Illinois, North Carolina, Oregon and Virginia. 

Nexstar, which owns The Hill, is already the largest provider of local news in the country, and also owns cable news channel NewsNation as well as stations in top U.S. markets like Los Angeles and Chicago.

In order for the Nexstar-Tegna deal to clear, the Federal Communications Commission would need to change its current rules capping the percentage of households a single broadcaster can reach nationwide.

That rule was at the center of a Senate hearing last month where defenders of the deal argued the current FCC ownership cap prevents broadcasters from competing with unregulated tech companies like Amazon, Google and Netflix in the modern media ecosystem.  

“Some argue that allowing broadcasters to achieve greater scale would reduce local news. The data shows just the opposite,” Curtis LeGeyt, President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Association of Broadcasters, told lawmakers during the hearing. “Over the past decade, as broadcasters gained modest additional scale, the number of local news telecasts and hours of locally produced news increased substantially.”

Trump has voiced support for the Nexstar-TEGNA deal, as has his FCC chair Brendan Carr.

“This merger is illegal, plain and simple, running contrary to federal antitrust laws that protect consumers,” Bonta said in a statement. “When broadcast media is owned by a handful of companies, we get fewer voices, less competition, and communities lose the critical check on power that local journalism delivers.”

A representative for Nexstar did not respond to a request for comment on the suit.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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