Nexstar Media
NASDAQ: NXST
$185.69 ▲ +2.38  (+1.30%)
At close: Jul 27, 2026 · 3:59 PM UTC
Financial Ratios
Market Cap5.66 Bn
P/E31.28
P/S1.11
Div. Yield0.04
ROIC (Qtr)0.02
Total Debt (Qtr)12.15 Bn
Revenue Growth (1y) (Qtr)13.13
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About

Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is a leading diversified media company that produces and distributes engaging local and national news sports and entertainment content across its television and digital platforms. The company owns America’s largest local television broadcasting group comprised of over 200 owned or partner stations in 116 U. S. markets in 40 states and the District of Columbia. Its national television portfolio includes an 80.8 percent interest in The CW Network a…

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Sector: Communication Services Industry: Broadcasting CIK: 0001142417

Investment Thesis

▲ Bull case
  • Nexstar Media Group, Inc. has strategically positioned itself to capitalize on the structural shift toward localized, fact-based news consumption, a trend underscored by NewsNation's explosive growth of 85% in total viewers and 100% among adults 25–54 year-over-year in March 2026, making it the fastest-growing network in primetime across all major broadcast and cable platforms. This surge is not a temporary spike but reflects a durable audience migration away from polarized national cable news toward trusted local journalism, a niche Nexstar dominates through its enterprise-wide commitment to unbiased reporting. The recent appointment of Patrick Paolini as TEGNA's CEO, a veteran of FOX Television Stations with a proven record of driving revenue growth across linear and digital platforms in major markets, signals imminent operational excellence at TEGNA that will accelerate synergies once the hold-separate order lifts. Paolini's track record of elevating stations to #1 market positions through expanded local news and lifestyle programming directly aligns with Nexstar's core strength in high-quality local broadcast journalism, suggesting that TEGNA's underutilized digital and news assets will be rapidly monetized upon integration, unlocking significant incremental value that the market is currently pricing out due to litigation overhang.
  • The company's capital allocation strategy reveals a powerful, underappreciated catalyst: Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is systematically deleveraging while simultaneously investing in high-margin growth platforms, a dual approach that is rare in the media industry and signals financial discipline that will support long-term value creation. During Q1 2026, the company repaid $182 million in debt through April 30, including $150 million optionally after quarter-end, and closed on refinancing its 2027 senior notes into new $1.725 billion of 7.25% senior notes due 2034, extending its debt maturity profile and reducing near-term refinancing risk. This deleveraging occurs alongside strategic investments in The CW's sports monetization, including the multiyear Mountain West Conference partnership delivering 13 football games and 35 basketball games annually, and groundbreaking distribution deals with ESPN and Roku that will extend The CW's reach to more than half of U.S. broadband households through dedicated vertical hubs. These initiatives are transforming The CW from a loss-leader into a profitable sports-driven network by Q4 2026, with near-term improvements expected to exceed 30% in full-year losses, all while generating incremental advertising and subscription revenue streams that are not yet reflected in current valuations.
  • Despite the hold-separate order restricting operational integration, Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is actively pursuing arm's-length commercial agreements with TEGNA that bypass restrictions and create immediate revenue opportunities, a tactical move the market is overlooking in its focus on litigation risks. As discussed in the Q&A, Nexstar and TEGNA are exploring collaborations such as contracting TEGNA stations to produce localized 10:00 p.m. news for CW affiliates and leveraging Premion, TEGNA's leading CTV/OTT advertising platform, to sell inventory across both companies' digital footprints without violating the court order. These arm's-length initiatives allow Nexstar to begin realizing synergies in digital advertising and news production immediately, particularly in overlapping markets, while preserving the legal separation required by the hold-separate order. The fact that TEGNA delivered a stellar first-quarter performance under this structure — contributing $31 million to adjusted EBITDA growth and demonstrating strong local news performance — indicates that operational separation is not hindering execution, and that Nexstar can extract value from TEGNA's assets today through structured partnerships, with full integration upside deferred but not denied by the litigation timeline.
▼ Bear case
  • Nexstar Media Group, Inc.'s leverage profile, while appearing compliant with covenants on a pro forma basis, masks significant near-term financial fragility that the market is underestimating due to aggressive add-backs and the exclusion of The CW's losses from leverage calculations. The company's total net leverage of 3.84x at quarter-end relies on pro forma adjustments that include TEGNA's adjusted EBITDA as if owned from day one of the period, add back one-time deal costs, and exclude The CW's operations and cash balance — a practice that distorts true economic leverage. Excluding these adjustments, Nexstar's actual debt burden is far higher: the $12.152 billion in total debt must be serviced by legacy Nexstar's standalone adjusted EBITDA of $439 million and TEGNA's segregated $31 million contribution, yielding a realistic leverage ratio exceeding 8.0x when measured against actual cash flow generation. This vulnerability is exacerbated by the refinancing of 2027 senior notes into 7.25% notes due 2034, which, while extending maturity, locks in a high-interest cost structure at a time when SOFR-linked rates could rise further, increasing interest expense beyond the $187.5 million run-rate cited by management and straining free cash flow available for deleveraging or shareholder returns.
  • The hold-separate order is creating irreversible operational decay at TEGNA that will undermine the very synergies Nexstar projected to justify the acquisition, a risk management is downplaying by pointing to TEGNA's strong first-quarter performance under separation. While TEGNA operated well in the stub period, the prohibition on headcount reductions and the inability to implement cost-saving initiatives — such as those Tegna itself had determined were necessary — are preventing the company from addressing structural inefficiencies in its Premion segment and local advertising sales force, which continued to decline year-over-year due to the loss of a major customer in 2025. More critically, the uncertainty is triggering talent attrition and degradation of critical business relationships, as Nexstar warned in its Reuters statement, with key employees and on-air talent likely to depart for more stable environments, eroding the local journalism franchise value that is the core justification for the premium paid in the TEGNA acquisition. Once the litigation resolves, Nexstar may inherit a weakened TEGNA platform requiring substantial reinvestment just to restore baseline performance, let alone capture the $300–$400 million in annual synergies originally modeled, turning what was presented as a transformative scale play into a costly integration project with diminished returns.
  • Nexstar Media Group, Inc.'s dependence on political advertising as a growth driver is exposing the company to cyclical volatility that the market is ignoring, particularly as the 2026 political season, while strong in Q1, is expected to weaken in Q2 and Q3, creating a revenue cliff that could expose weaknesses in core advertising segments. Although political advertising was $78 million on a combined basis in Q1 — up 19% versus 2024 — management acknowledged a mid-single-digit decline in non-political advertising for Q2 due to a weaker advertising environment, with Lee Ann Gliha noting that two-thirds of advertising categories are decreasing quarter-over-quarter. This softness is not transient; it reflects broader structural challenges in local advertising, including the continued decline of packaged goods, drugstores, and traditional media advertisers, which are not being offset by growth in department stores, attorneys, or gaming and sports betting. The company's reliance on big-ticket political events like the Super Bowl and Olympics to boost NBC-affiliated stations — a tailwind that will not persist — combined with the erosion of non-political base business, suggests that Q1's strength is unsustainable, and that the company's adjusted EBITDA margin of 33.7% is vulnerable to compression as political spending normalizes and core advertising weakness persists, leaving Nexstar without a credible offset to its high fixed-cost base.

Segments Breakdown of Revenue (2025)

Product and Service Breakdown of Revenue (2025)

Peer Comparison

Companies in the Broadcasting
S.No. Ticker Company Market CapP/EP/STotal Debt (Qtr)
1 NXST Nexstar Media Group, Inc. 5.66 Bn31.281.1112.15 Bn
2 NMAX Newsmax Inc. 0.84 Bn-8.445.820.03 Bn
3 IHRT iHeartMedia, Inc. 0.57 Bn-1.970.145.04 Bn
4 GTN Gray Media, Inc 0.39 Bn-2.630.135.75 Bn
5 SSP E.W. SCRIPPS Co 0.27 Bn-1.640.132.55 Bn
6 FUBO FuboTV Inc. 0.25 Bn-0.970.080.14 Bn
7 CURI CuriosityStream Inc. 0.14 Bn-21.981.97-
8 MDIA Mediaco Holding Inc. 0.08 Bn-1.210.610.07 Bn