Irving-based television broadcaster Nexstar has become a major player in ABC suspending late-night host Jimmy Kimmel indefinitely over his comments following the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk last week.
Nexstar has grown to be one of the largest broadcast television station owners in the country and operates affiliates such as KDAF in Dallas, a WB network, and Austin NBC station KXAN.
It became entangled in the Kimmel saga after announcing this week that it would “preempt” “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after the host said on air that “The MAGA gang (is) desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
“Mr. Kimmel’s comments about the death of Mr. Kirk are offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse, and we do not believe they reflect the spectrum of opinions, views, or values of the local communities in which we are located,” said Andrew Alford, president of Nexstar’s broadcasting division in a statement.
ABC’s decision to suspend one of America’s most popular late-night stars came two days after Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, suggested in a podcast interview that networks should stop airing the show themselves.
Here’s what else you need to know about Nexstar and the unfolding Kimmel saga.
Who is Nexstar?
Nexstar is a media company based in Irving and the largest television station owner and operator in the U.S., with around 200 local television stations across the country. These stations collectively reach about 39% of all U.S. households and include affiliates of the major broadcast networks CBS, FOX, NBC, The CW, MyNetworkTV and ABC. More than 30 of Nexstar’s stations are ABC affiliates.
In addition to its local television stations, Nexstar owns a controlling stake in national television networks The CW and NewsNation. The CW is known for its track record of successful young adult shows, like “The Vampire Diaries” and “Dawson’s Creek,” while NewsNation airs newscasts from personalities including former CNN hosts Chris Cuomo and Elizabeth Vargas and former Fox News hosts Laura Ingle and Leland Vittert. Nexstar also acquired political news website The Hill in 2021.
How is Nexstar involved in Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension?
On Wednesday afternoon, soon after Carr, the FCC chairman, suggested broadcasters pull Kimmel, Nexstar did exactly that.
“Continuing to give Mr. Kimmel a broadcast platform in the communities we serve is simply not in the public interest at the current time,” Alford said, “and we have made the difficult decision to preempt his show in an effort to let cooler heads prevail.”
Sinclair, the second-largest television station operator, also preempted the show and took it a step further, calling on the FCC and ABC to “take additional action.”
ABC announced its suspension shortly thereafter.
Why is Nexstar’s merger with Tegna important?
On Aug. 19, Nexstar announced it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Tegna, another television station owner and operator, for $6.2 billion. The acquisition would bring Nexstar to a total of 265 stations reaching 80% of American households.
The merger needs Federal Communications Commission approval. Currently, there is an FCC rule capping the audience reach of television station owners at 39%. The Trump administration first considered changing or eliminating this rule in 2018, and it again reopened commenting on the rule in July of this year.
In an interview with conservative podcaster Benny Johnson posted Wednesday just after 1 p.m., Carr said:
“There’s actions that we can take on licensed broadcasters. And frankly, I think that it’s past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back on Comcast and Disney and say, ‘Listen, we are going to preempt. We are not going to run Kimmel anymore, until you straighten this out, because we licensed broadcasters are running the possibility of fines or license revocation from the FCC if we continue to run content that ends up being a pattern of news distortion.’”
Several hours after Carr’s interview was posted, Nexstar announced its ABC affiliates would “preempt Jimmy Kimmel Live! Indefinitely.”
Nexstar, in a statement to The Dallas Morning News Thursday, said its move was not affected by the pending Tegna merger.
“The decision to preempt “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” was made unilaterally by the senior executive team at Nexstar, and they had no communication with the FCC or any government agency prior to making that decision,” the company said.
Has Nexstar pulled a show before?
While Nexstar has a history of going dark on television providers like Dish and DirecTV during carriage disputes, it’s unclear if Nexstar has ever refused to air a specific program before.
Nexstar declined to answer whether it had pulled a show from affiliates before.
The specific language Nexstar and ABC used was “preempting” Jimmy Kimmel Live! “indefinitely.” In broadcasting, preempting usually means replacing scheduled content with content deemed more important, and it’s usually temporary.
The phrase “We interrupt this broadcast” comes from instances where regularly scheduled programming is preempted by a major breaking news announcement, such as the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. A more common instance of preemption is when a nationally broadcasted sports game goes long and is aired in favor of what was scheduled next.
Who is Perry Sook?
Perry Sook is the founder, chairman and CEO of Nexstar. He is routinely among the highest-paid public company CEOs in D-FW. In 2024, his total compensation was more than $35 million, according to the company’s most recent proxy statement.
Sook founded Nexstar as a single TV station in Scranton, Penn., and has since led the company to greater than $5 billion in revenue in 2024, per its latest annual report.
Related
Like many CEOs, Sook maintains a relatively private life and is not outspoken about politics. As of late, he has not been a frequent donor to political causes, according to campaign finance database OpenSecrets. He most recently donated $5,000 to the National Association of Broadcasters, which has lobbied for changes to the FCC’s television station ownership cap, at the start of last year.
His most recent donation to a political candidate came in 2021 to Republican Liz Cheney, a well-known Trump critic. In the past 10 years, he has also donated to other elected officials including Republicans Ted Cruz, Marsha Blackburn and Paul Ryan, with a lone Democratic contribution to Chuck Schumer in 2016.
Are mergers being politicized?
This is not the first time this year that major companies’ decisions have come as they pursue FCC approval for a merger.
In May, Verizon scrapped diversity, equity and inclusion programs hours before Carr announced approval of its merger with Dallas-based Frontier Communications. T-Mobile took similar anti-DEI steps with two major deals awaiting FCC approval.
In July, Paramount, which owns CBS, paid Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit over the editing of its program “60 Minutes.” The settlement came as Paramount sought FCC approval for a multibillion-dollar merger with Skydance.
CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert called the settlement a “big fat bribe” to approve the merger during a monologue July 14, and on July 17 CBS announced his show would end at the end of the season in May 2026. On July 24, the Paramount-Skydance merger was approved.
CBS has denied that the cancellation had anything to do with politics, the merger, or the content of Colbert’s show.
Why are people concerned?
As a company, Nexstar has a legal right to air or cancel whatever programs it wants.
But civil rights advocates like Adam Steinbaugh, a senior attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, say the issue comes from the perception that the federal government is interfering in the media company’s decision-making.
FIRE is a First Amendment advocacy group founded in 1999 with a nonpartisan track record of defending everything from Kirk’s oft-protested appearances on college campuses to opposing on-campus drag show bans at universities in Texas.
“If the federal government [and] Brendan Carr had said nothing at all, and Nexstar said, ‘You know what, we don’t like what Jimmy Kimmel said, we don’t want him on our airway. We’re not going to run it,’ that’s their First Amendment choice,” said Steinbaugh.
“The problem here is that when Carr said they should do exactly that, and they’ve got business pending before the federal government. … It raises serious First Amendment issues.”