On March 20, Nexstar Media Group completed its acquisition of TEGNA, creating the largest local television company in American history. The combined entity now operates 265 stations reaching approximately 80 percent of US households. The Federal Communications Commission approved the deal without a full commission vote, waiving its own 39 percent national audience cap — a rule the agency itself had maintained for decades — to let the merger proceed. [1]

No act of Congress authorized the waiver. No public hearing preceded it. FCC Chair Brendan Carr, who oversaw the approval, issued no detailed written order explaining the rationale. The Committee to Protect Journalists called the decision "unprecedented overreach," noting that it "violates the agency's own rules and undermines the diversity of local media ownership that those rules were designed to protect."

The structural consequences are already visible. Within days of the merger's close, journalists were laid off at stations in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Nexstar has a well-documented pattern of consolidating newsroom operations after acquisitions — centralizing production, cutting local reporting staff, and syndicating content across markets. What was once a station in your city with reporters who knew your city becomes a relay point for content produced elsewhere.

Eight state attorneys general have filed suit to block or unwind the merger, arguing that the FCC lacked the authority to waive the ownership cap without formal rulemaking. DirecTV has joined the legal challenge, citing concerns about negotiating leverage with a broadcaster that reaches four out of five American homes.

The irony sits in plain view. Chair Carr has been vocal about what he frames as the fragmentation crisis in sports broadcasting — arguing that consumers suffer when games are scattered across streaming platforms. He tweeted about this problem the same week he approved the consolidation of local news into fewer hands than at any point since the FCC began tracking ownership. The fragmentation he worries about in sports is the diversity he just eliminated in journalism.

What makes this a press freedom story rather than a business story is the mechanism. The FCC did not change its rules. It did not argue that the 39 percent cap was outdated. It simply acted as though the cap did not apply. The precedent this sets is not about Nexstar specifically. It is about what any future administration can approve by declining to enforce the regulations already on the books.

Local television news remains the primary news source for a plurality of Americans, particularly in communities without robust digital alternatives. When one company controls the stations in a market, the range of editorial judgment narrows to one. The merger closed six days ago. The lawsuits will take years. The layoffs have already started.

-- Anna Weber, Berlin