OCTOBER 2025 – Last month’s dust-up over Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension – and the blackouts by broadcast companies Sinclair and Nexstar – cast a klieg light on the owners of scores of small broadcast affiliates. There was some immediate new coverage: The WSJ ran a profile last week on Nexstar’s CEO, Perry Sook, who’s been quietly building an affiliate empire over the last two decades.
https://www.wsj.com/business/media/who-is-nexstar-ceo-jimmy-kimmel-724f4da7
Nexstar’s next acquisition is Tegna – the broadcast spinoff of Gannett – something that requires regulatory approval. That has a way of course of turning even the most independent managements into lapdogs for government regulators – especially nowadays.
But the ongoing, larger story is these companies’ dependence on campaign season political advertising for profitability. Even a basic Google and/or AI search reveals that Sinclair runs losses in off-election years, and profits handsomely in election years.
That’s a critical feature of the broadcast affilliate business model – and it’s only getting worse. The implications – for news coverage, for starters – are profound. It’s true, local TV news shows have never been hotbeds of real journalism – they read community press releases and report on conspicuous crimes.
It’s true, too, that Big Tech is pulling ad dollars to their social media platforms – but the dollars involved in political advertising keep growing for both. The election season of 2024 bolstered Nexstar’s profits to record levels. The previous year it reported a loss. Time for a major newsroom reporter to dive in.