BIA released its updated listing of the Top 25 local TV group owners ranked by 2024 revenue, which was published in a special report on TVNewscheck: Nexstar Again Tops Station Groups As Consolidation Prospects Grow – TV News Check.
As expected, Nexstar continues to top the list with its 114 stations covering 70 percent of the country (39.1 percent coverage per FCC definitions). Nexstar’s total revenues for 2024 were $5.4 billion, of which 54 percent or $2.9 billion came from retransmission revenue. Sinclair ($3.1 billion) and NBC Owned Stations ($3.1 billion) also had just over 50 percent of their total revenue coming from retransmission consent. TelevisaUnivision’s retrans revenue accounted for 57.3 percent of $1.4 billion. On average, retransmission revenue comprised 36.8 percent of total revenue among the Top 25 stations in the BIA’s ranking.
Local TV groups have been expecting relaxed ownership policies coming from the FCC regarding the national cap (39 percent audience coverage per FCC definition) and Top 4 Rule (one TV group may not own more than one of the top four stations in a market), which would allow greater recognition of scale and scope efficiencies. These early M&A discussions in local broadcast are speaking to what broadcasters say they needed, scale at local to develop cost efficiencies to support local news, sales, programming even as they continue their digital rollouts to serve audiences and advertisers in CTV. Local station scale may offer promise in the retrans space as well.
Indeed, in recent days, we’ve seen the FCC allow Top 4 waivers for Gray in smaller markets. Then the U.S. Court of Appeals in St. Louis opened things up when they struck down the FCC‘s Top 4 duopoly rule, which now enables common ownership of the top four stations in the same market. TV groups, including Gray, Scripps, Sinclair, and others, are also doing “swaps” to exchange similarly valued stations to achieve regional or market size efficiencies.
The line-up on the field may change by this time next year. Allen Media is looking to sell, Sinclair has announced all strategic options are open, Nexstar is in discussions with TEGNA about possible acquisitions. And so on. All this points to confidence in the ability for local TV to survive and perhaps thrive in a frothy media environment.
On the other hand, companies like Paramount, Comcast, WB Discovery are looking to split off their linear assets from their studio and streaming assets. Presumably, the spin out of linear assets is to sell them to PE firms who will slim them down in terms of programming, and other content, cut costs and put back on the market. They’re betting more heavily on the streaming side with its various business models including DTC (direct to consumer) or bundled offerings in FASTs, vMVPDs, and platforms including Roku, Amazon, or Apple TV.
Looking ahead, like many, we’re expecting to see lots of activity during the next year or so. And then TV station M&A likely will settle down for a bit as owners focus on operational execution, managing margins, and hopefully driving significant growth on the digital side.
To support M&A activities, BIA has developed a data-driven Local TV M&A Playbook, featuring Local Market and TV Ownership sections that provide in-depth coverage of all TV markets and owners. We will be announcing it in late August (email us if you’d like to be notified when available). BIA also provides station valuation and appraisal financial consulting services, and our team can be contacted by email if you’d like to discuss a project.
