FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Saturday, April 18, 2026
Contact: comms@ncdoj.gov
919-538-2809
RALEIGH – On Friday evening, a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction freezing Nexstar’s $6.2 billion merger with Tegna while Attorney General Jackson’s antitrust lawsuit against the deal continues. The two companies must keep operating as completely separate entities, with separate management and separate newsrooms.
Nexstar had raced to close its $6.2 billion acquisition of Tegna just hours after eight state attorneys general sued to block the deal. On March 18, the states filed a federal lawsuit alleging the merger violates antitrust law. The very next day, the U.S. Department of Justice dropped its antitrust investigation. Within hours, the FCC — without a vote of the full Commission — waived its rules that have capped TV station ownership at 39 percent of American households for decades. Nearly simultaneously, Nexstar announced it had closed the deal.
Attorney General Jackson released the following statement:
“This is another big anti-monopoly win, coming right on the heels of our Ticketmaster win.
“Nexstar and Tegna have to keep operating separately while our lawsuit plays out.
“For North Carolina, that means local news in Charlotte, the Triad, and beyond stays independent for now. Your local reporters keep their jobs.
“We sued to stop this merger because it would hand one company 228 television stations reaching roughly 80 percent of American households, more than double the FCC’s 39 percent national ownership cap. You can’t concentrate that much media power in one company.
“This ruling freezes Nexstar and Tegna as separate companies, with separate management and separate newsrooms, while the court hears our full case.
“This order came down the same week as our big win in the Ticketmaster case. Another instance of USDOJ cutting a deal that was bad for consumers, and state attorneys general taking it to court anyway and winning. We intend to do exactly that here.”
A copy of the 52-page order from the judge is available here.
More on Attorney General Jackson’s lawsuit is here.
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