Nexstar: Last News

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Eight CBS-owned TV stations will be dropping their affiliation with The CW and becoming independent stations as of September. The stations are: WPSG Philadelphia (DMA #4), WUPA Atlanta (DMA #6), KBCW San Francisco (DMA #10), KSTW Seattle (DMA #12), WTOG Tampa-St. Petersburg (DMA #13), WKBD Detroit (DMA #14), KMAX Sacramento (DMA #20), and WPCW Pittsburgh (DMA #26). This will give the CBS Stations group a total of 14 CBS Television Network stations and 13 independent stations. “We look forward to reimagining these stations as independents while leveraging the considerable value of their prime-time real estate in each of the markets,” said Wendy McMahon, president and co-head of CBS News and Stations. “It’s an exciting time to look at new opportunities to add local programming, including live sports, and shows from across the Paramount Global brands. We are also grateful to have been part of The CW for 17 memorable years and wish our partners at Nexstar continued success.”

The CW is about to lose eight important affiliates: the CBS owned and operated stations that are currently affiliated with the Nexstar-owned network will become independent in September.

Perry Sook, who has led Nexstar Media Group from humble beginnings two-plus decades ago to its current status as the top owner of TV stations and the parent of The CW, made $39.3 million in 2022.

The CW has always had a thing or two for an international acquisition and it seems that this strategy is continuing under new ownership.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor The new New York studio that Nexstar Media Group built for Elizabeth Vargas’ nascent NewsNation program is so big, the anchor believes she could do five cartwheels across if called upon to do so. Starting Monday night, the company begins the process of figuring out if such rigorous calisthenics will be necessary. TV-news aficionados likely know Vargas from her 15-year stint as a co-anchor on ABC News’ “20/20,” but on Monday night, she will jump right into the fray in the information wars, with a program at 6 p.m. eastern – a time slot that has become more competitive in recent months. At MSNBC, for example, Ari Melber’s “The Beat” has become one of that network’s most-watched programs. Late-afternoon has become more of a cable-news battlefield as viewers who have learned to work from home after the coronavirus pandemic tune in earlier to get a recap of the day’s events.

EXCLUSIVE: Another shakeup is afoot in the news division of LA’s Nexstar-owned KTLA, this time behind the scenes. The station’s news director, Pete Saiers, is out. The station’s staff was just informed of his abrupt exit. His last day was today. The official stance is that Saiers and the management mutually agreed to not renew his contract, I hear. Deadline has reached out to KTLA and parent Nexstar for comment.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter More layoffs are underway at The CW, Variety has confirmed. Sources say that over a dozen people have been let go from the network, mostly in the marketing and finance divisions. According to an individual with knowledge of the situation, those released this time were supposed to be part of an initial round of cuts that took place late last year, but ongoing projects or remaining time on their contracts meant they were not let go until today. This marks the latest layoffs at the broadcast network since Nexstar acquired a majority stake in it in October 2022. As Variety exclusively reported in November, between 30-40 staffers were laid off shortly after the deal closed, including longtime network communications head Paul Hewitt. Those came after network head Mark Pedowitz stepped down along with several other senior executives.

EXCLUSIVE: The CW is undergoing another round of staff cuts, sources tell Deadline. We hear more than 15 people were affected, with the marketing/promotional team impacted, along with finance.

EXCLUSIVE: Cyle Zezo, who oversaw alternative programming at The CW, is leaving the broadcaster.

EXCLUSIVE: FBoy Island, the breakout HBO Max reality format, is getting another date.

Karamo, the syndicated talk show hosted by Karamo Brown, has been renewed for a second season. The news was announced Thursday by Tracie Wilson, Executive Vice President, NBCUniversal Syndication Studios & E! News.

Brian 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.”

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor The CW is hoping advertisers will take another swing at its unorthodox new golf tournament if it offers some different ways of doing transactions that involve it. The network, recently brought under control of Nexstar Media Group, will work with iSpot.TV, one of a handful of new providers of audience-measurement technologies, to measure the effectiveness of commercials attached to linear and digital broadcasts of tournaments backed by LIV Golf, the upstart league financed by Saudi Arabia. CW is to air 14 global LIV Golf League live events in 2023 and will stream the events live on its app. Weekend tournaments will air live on Saturdays and Sundays on the linear network, and stream online Fridays.

Tom Carter, president and COO of The CW parent Nexstar Media Group, said the debut of Saudi-backed LIV Golf on the network in late-February was a hit and may well help spur more talks with sports rights holders.

Despite an impasse between Paramount Global and FuboTV, which has kept Nexstar stations off the air for weeks, Nexstar President and COO Tom Carter has a relatively upbeat outlook on pay-TV’s future.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Nexstar is still dark on internet streamer FuboTV on Tuesday, the TV station group giant’s president and chief operating officer explained why. “We are in a dispute with CBS right now over the Fubo situation,” Tom Carter said during a Morgan Stanley-hosted investor conference. “But keep in mind that virtual MVPDs contribute less than 10% of our distribution revenue and our distribution revenue is about half of our total revenue and Fubo is the smallest vMVPD we deal with. So we’re talking about a relatively minor amount of money, quite honestly, to both us and CBS. So it’s kind of easy to pick Fubo as a fight to have.” Nexstar executive vice president and chief financial officer Lee Ann Gliha noted: “We view this as a CBS-only issues and it’s just driven by the specific issues that surround the CBS situation.”

NewsNation is launching an hourlong panel show The Hill, a brand expansion of the Nexstar political website that will be moderated by Leland Vittert.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large As former The CW chairman and CEO Mark Pedowitz gets back into the production business, he has sign on with CAA for representation, the tenpercentary announced on Thursday. Pedowitz has revived his shingle, Pine Street Entertainment, which is represented by CAA as part of the arrangement. Pedowitz announced his departure from The CW in October, following Nexstar Media Group’s acquisition of the network from its previous joint operators CBS and Warner Bros. (Those two entities maintain minority stakes in The CW, but Nexstar is now the majority owner and operator.) In reviving Pine Street Entertainment, Pedowitz is bringing back his independent production company that produced CBS’ “The Crazy Ones” (starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and Robin Williams), as well as a number of development projects.

LIV’s opening weekend on the CW (along with some random indie stations and diginets) was about as appealing as taking a snowman on a Par 4: the inaugural live broadcast averaged 289,000 viewers and a 0.18 household rating on Saturday and Sunday, according to reports.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Nexstar is bringing together two of its prized properties this spring with the debut of a daily “The Hill” program on NewsNation. Chairman and CEO Perry Sook revealed that the long-gestating series based on the political news outlet, acquired by Nexstar in 2021, will premiere in April and run Monday-Friday. “Next steps for us, obviously, Elizabeth Vargas is going to the network in April,” Sook said. “And by the end of April we will have a program schedule that will be news 24/5. So we will be a 24-hour news network Monday-Friday by the end of April and that will include the daytime expansion, the addition of ‘The Hill,’ the addition of the ‘Elizabeth Vargas Reports’ show at 6 o’clock Eastern, Monday-Friday. And at that point, obviously, we’re getting higher cost per thousands in news programming than we did in off-network programming. We’ve been able to substantially grow our distribution revenue because of news content and being one of five networks rather than one of a hundred general entertainment networks.”

Nexstar CEO Perry Sook said the company’s acquisition of the CW has already paid for itself in terms of adding muscle to the company’s distribution negotiations.