For years, broadcasters have argued that consolidation is the path to survival. The pitch is always the same: scale allows TV, Radio and other media focused companies to compete with Big Tech, invest more in local journalism, and stabilize an industry being disrupted by streaming.
But if you want a glimpse of what consolidation often actually looks like, look no further than what’s happening at Nexstar Media right now.
In the middle of its push to merge with TEGNA, Nexstar has begun eliminating jobs across its station portfolio — particularly in creative services and promotions. Entire departments are being wiped out. Producers, creative directors, voiceover talent — many of the people responsible for shaping the brand identity of local stations — gone.
In their place? A model focused on output over impact, process over skill.
According to sources, the company is aiming to produce promotional content for many of its stations out of hubs in non-union markets. Automated voiceover services like SpotVoice are replacing experienced announcers who helped define the company’s brands for decades. The work previously handled by hundreds of professionals will now fall on a dramatically smaller number of people.
That raises an obvious question.
How exactly does removing the people responsible for creating your product make the product better?
The “Synergy” Playbook
To understand what’s happening, you have to understand the corporate buzzword driving these decisions: synergies.
Whenever a major media merger is proposed, executives promise investors that “synergies” will unlock millions in savings. In reality, that almost always translates into one thing — eliminating duplicate jobs.
Creative services. Marketing. Traffic. Promotions. Master control.
If two companies have those departments, the merged company will argue it only needs one.
In the Nexstar-TEGNA scenario, that’s exactly what is playing out in advance. Nexstar is centralizing promotional production into regional hubs and replacing local talent with automated services, moves designed to dramatically reduce operating costs.
From a spreadsheet standpoint, the math makes sense. From a product standpoint, it’s much harder to justify.
Local television’s value proposition has always been its localism. The idea that stations serve their communities with distinct voices, personalities, and brands. But when creative work for dozens of stations is produced out of centralized hubs, the result isn’t local television anymore. It’s franchise television.
And viewers will see and hear the difference.
The Advertising Question
There’s another audience that should be asking hard questions right now: advertisers.
Local television remains one of the most powerful marketing platforms in America. But advertisers invest in TV because they believe in the quality and credibility of the product. When companies begin cutting the people responsible for producing that product, confidence can erode quickly.
Promotions departments don’t just create commercials and promos. They build station brands. They shape campaigns. They tell the story of why a station matters to a community. Strip those teams away, and the station risks becoming just another distribution outlet for content.
If advertisers start seeing stations as interchangeable pipes rather than distinctive local brands, the value proposition of local TV weakens significantly. That’s a dangerous place for the industry to be.
The Merger That Tests the Rules
Beyond the layoffs, the Nexstar-TEGNA merger raises serious regulatory questions. Current federal law limits a broadcast company from reaching more than 39% of U.S. television households through station ownership.
The Nexstar-TEGNA combination would blow past that threshold.
If approved, the merged company could reach around 80% of American households, controlling approximately 265 stations nationwide.
To make that happen, regulators would have to either:
- Waive the existing cap, or
- Change the rule entirely.
Neither path is simple.
The 39% ownership cap was written into federal law by Congress, which means the FCC may not even have the authority to waive it without legislative action. Yet pressure is mounting to loosen those rules in the name of helping broadcasters compete with digital giants like Google, Meta, and YouTube.
That’s the argument broadcasters — and the National Association of Broadcasters — have been making.
But here’s where things get uncomfortable.
If consolidation truly strengthens the industry, why does it almost always begin with layoffs?
The Ripple Effect on Jobs
Broadcasting has already undergone two decades of consolidation. Each wave of mergers has promised efficiencies and stronger companies but rarely does that happen.
In Nexstar’s case, from year-end 2019 to year-end 2024, it cut a staggering 4,420 jobs. That represented nearly 20% of its total workforce.
During that same period, the company’s revenue rose from just over 3 billion to just under 5 and a half billion. At first glance, that sounds remarkable. But then when you examine things closer, you learn that 2 billion per year was being produced by Tribune prior to being sold. The merger helped reduce costs by a reported 185 million dollars. Add it up and you have a flat to slightly up business over 5 years.
But when you look at 2025 revenue, Nexstar was under 5 billion. The company lost roughly 500 million dollars between 2024 and 2025. TEGNA meanwhile earned 2.87-2.88 billion, down from 3.1 billion in 2024.
If the merger is approved, they’ll likely show a balance sheet that grew from 5 billion to 7+ billion with another 100-200 million eliminated in ‘synergies’. But is that a growing company? Is the product better? Are sales in stronger shape? Is the business suddenly in position to challenge Google, Apple, Netflix, Amazon and other big tech giants?
When large groups merge, duplicate roles disappear. Regional hubs replace local teams. Automation replaces skilled labor.
The Nexstar situation is simply the latest chapter in that playbook.
Every transaction triggers restructuring. Every restructuring means fewer jobs. That ripple effect should matter to regulators.
Because local television isn’t just an industry, it’s an employment ecosystem for journalists, producers, marketers, engineers, and creatives across hundreds of communities. When consolidation reduces those opportunities, the impact spreads far beyond the companies involved.
The NAB’s Complicated Position
Which brings us to another question that deserves more attention. Why does the National Association of Broadcasters support policies that consistently lead to fewer broadcasting jobs?
The NAB argues that consolidation is needed to help broadcasters compete with Big Tech platforms that face virtually no ownership restrictions. There’s truth in that argument. Facebook and Google operate without the regulatory constraints imposed on broadcasters.
But there’s also a contradiction.
Broadcasting’s greatest competitive advantage has always been its connection to local communities. When companies eliminate local staff, centralize operations, and homogenize station brands, that advantage disappears.
At some point, the industry has to ask itself whether chasing scale is worth sacrificing identity. Take a look around over the past decade, how exactly have television, radio and print performed? Jobs are lower, revenues are down, and one can easily argue local journalism has suffered, over the air programming has been weakened, and the rise of digital media companies are stronger positioned for the next decade than many legacy businesses.
What Would Have to Change
If the Nexstar-TEGNA merger moves forward, regulators will likely have to modify or reinterpret long-standing ownership rules.
That could mean:
• Raising or eliminating the 39% national audience cap
• Allowing broader waivers for station ownership
• Further relaxing local duopoly rules
There are potential benefits to those changes. Larger companies could theoretically invest more in technology, streaming infrastructure, and national programming.
But the risks are just as real.
More consolidation means fewer independent voices, fewer local decision-makers, and fewer jobs. It also increases the power of a handful of companies to influence the economics and potentially the editorial direction of local television.
That’s not a theoretical concern. It’s exactly the scenario lawmakers are debating right now.
The Bottom Line
The Nexstar-TEGNA merger isn’t just another corporate deal. It’s a test case for the future of broadcasting.
If regulators approve a transaction that requires bending or rewriting ownership rules while layoffs are already underway, they’re sending a message about what the future of local television will look like.
Bigger companies. Fewer employees. More centralized operations. AI influencing and shaping presentation.
Maybe that’s the inevitable direction of the industry. But before regulators sign off on that future, they should ask one simple question.
If consolidation is supposed to make broadcasting stronger, why does it keep leaving the industry with fewer people to actually produce the product?
If the people disappear, eventually the value does too. And that’s a risk broadcasters, advertisers, and regulators should think long and hard about before letting the next mega-merger reshape the landscape.
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