You know how I’ve railed against the amount of time and money that’s been wasted on changing the name of a media company? You hopefully do recall those incidences; I went on such a rant as late as yesterday.
There is a caveat to all of that vitriol though. The changes I worked on, not to mention the MS fiasco we mused about, were ones brought about by corporate necessity, often related to contractual obligations. Sometimes, when something evolves to the point where its current nomenclature is archaic, a renaming could be welcomed and may more accurately represent what it actually is.
Such was the case when I considered how significant a move Nexstar made yesterday when it effectively stuck a finger in the eye of all existing laws to the contrary and redoubled its claim as America’s largest broadcast station aggregator. ADWEEK’s Kevin Eck laid it all out in easy-to-grasp style:
Nexstar Media Group and Tegna Inc. have announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement where Nexstar buy all of Tegna’s stations in a cash transaction valued at $6.2 billion.
Once the deal closes, Nexstar and its partners will have 265 full-power television stations in 44 states and the District of Columbia and 132 of the country’s 210 television DMAs. The combined company will have stations in 9 of the top 10 DMAs, 41 of the top 50 DMAs, 62 of the top 75 DMAs and 82 of the top 100 DMAs, covering, in total, 80% of U.S. television households.
Covering 80 percent of TV households effectively makes you a network. There was once a time where cable networks reached that threshold. The fact that there were pockets of typically smaller market and SES-deficient households that didn’t receive it didn’t stop advertisers from embracing them wholeheartedly.
And Eck reminded his readers that when this deal is expected to close Nexstar will be as well-suited as any network to take maximum advantage of what at least at the moment represents the best opportunity for revenue growth:
Nexstar also said the move extends its footprint to additional contested election DMAs. The addition of strong Big-4 affiliates in key contested election DMAs, such as Phoenix, Arizona, Atlanta, Georgia, Toledo, Ohio, and Portland, Manie will enhance the political advertising outlook for Nexstar in even-numbered years.
So at least in this case bigger is better. Exactly what qualifies as better depends upon which political color you prefer. It’s quite evident that the guy that stands to benefit most from this bleeds quite red, as UPI’s Lisa Hornung noted:
Nexstar CEO Perry Sook lauded Trump in the press release.”The initiatives being pursued by the Trump administration offer local broadcasters the opportunity to expand reach, level the playing field, and compete more effectively with the Big Tech and legacy Big Media companies that have unchecked reach and vast financial resources. We believe Tegna represents the best option for Nexstar to act on this opportunity,” he said.
And that caught the attention of more progressive observers who seem to believe this is yet another nail in the coffin of democracy, as this nugget tossed out in all of things FRONT OFFICE SPORTS’ morning newsletter noted:
“More consolidation is bad for local communities,” Craig Aaron, CEO of public interest group Free Press, said in a blog post. “Of course, the companies leading the charge for more consolidation see local news only as a vehicle for serving political ads and spreading right-wing propaganda. For them, this is going as planned.”
We probably spend more time than we should debating and lamenting these issues, and undoubtedly at another time we will. As our friend Rick Ellis lamented in his TOO MUCH TELEVISION newsletter last night, none other than someone who just cashed out of this business perhaps gave us all the most sobering reality check of the media landscape, exiting Paramount nepobaby Shari Redstone:
“We may not like the world we live in, but a board has to do what’s in the best interest of shareholders.”
Which brings us to that name thing. Nexstar just happens to control a network right now called the CW–and ironically Redstone used to run the C of that acronym. Her successors are clearly prioritizing growing business sectors apart from it, and her comrade in arms Yosemite Zas has already divided the W portion of that empire he controls accordingly and handed off what they consider to be yesterday’s news to his de facto CFO.
If I’m Perry Sook, the last thing I’d want in my portfolio is an entity that celebrates and embraces the very competitive forces that motivated him to curry favor with our current administration amd if needed tilt his news product in a capitulating direction to allow him to do so. Not to mention a brand that still conjures up memories of younger-skewing and liberal content that the current CW has made quite clear they have neither the financial nor moral commitment to continue.
And in the spirit of such cost efficiencies, let me present my rebrand solution.
Besides capitalizing on the corporate name, it reflects a commitment to that new generation of broadcaster that Sook rambled on about per Eck:
“Tegna is a premier operator with high quality local television stations primarily in the top 75 DMAs. We and Tegna are similarly dedicated to providing communities of all sizes with the best programming and fact-based local journalism along with innovative digital products and marketing solutions for local viewers and advertisers. The transaction will increase Nexstar’s reach through the expansion of our presence in important DMAs such as Atlanta, Phoenix, Seattle, and Minneapolis, as well as enhance our local presence, enabling us to continue to provide the core local news and programming that is in the public’s interest.”
For better or worse, it’s most certainly the next generation of network. Hence NEXNET.
No, I haven’t gone through the time and expense to yet run it up the number of flagpoles than the Versant braintrust did to give us what is being lampooned as a hybrid of two women’s magazines from the 70s. I’d be gratified if I could, because I’m not so arrogant to think my brainfa–er, storm–is necessarily the de facto solution. Though I can assure you I could do this a LOT cheaper and quicker than anyone at Versant did.
But would you concede that we’re at least off to a decent start?
Until next time…