Nexstar Plans to Package CW, NewsNation With Local Stations in TV Upfront (EXCLUSIVE)
variety.comBrian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Nexstar Media has spent months assembling a massive roster of TV stations; acquring TV’s CW network; and building the NewsNation cable-news oulet.
Now comes the hard part: Getting Madison Avenue to buy ads across all of it. The nation’s largest owner of local TV outlets is ready to make its pitch to advertisers and has already scheduled a presentation for media buyers in New York for April 25.
The goal, says Michael Strober, the company’s chief revenue officer, is to showcase the company’s reach among both national and local media. “We can bring local and national to our clients in ways that have never been replicated across the country,” he says in an interview. “The CW, NewsNation, TheHill, Nexstar Digital and over 200 local stations — that to me is our differentiator in the marketplace.” Nexstar is contacting media agencies just weeks before the industry’s annual “upfront” market, when big media companies try to sell the bulk of their advertising inventory ahead of the next programming cycle.
For Nexstsar, the sales session could be critical. The company acquired majority control of CW from Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global in October and has vowed to make the one-time home of “Gossip Girl” and “Arrow” profitable by 2025.
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