Nexstar‘s third-quarter revenue nearly doubled thanks to the boom in political advertising.
Total revenue reached $2.1 billion, up from $1.2 billion in the year-earlier period. For all of 2026, political ad revenue hit $1.1 billion, a new company record and 31% ahead of the previous midterm cycle in 2022. The tally includes results from Tegna, which Nexstar technically acquired this year but has been legally blocked from integrating by a federal judge. (Another local TV station owner, Sinclair, on Wednesday reported a full-year political ad haul of $455 million, well ahead of the 2024 presidential election year.)
During a conference call with Wall Street analysts, executives fielded questions about the company’s ongoing appeal of a judge’s order blocking its merger with Tegna, Tuesday’s midterm elections and the financial outlook of The CW.
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Oral arguments in the Tegna case are scheduled to be heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Nov. 17, with the panel of judges likely to render a decision in early 2027. Asked if the outcome of Election Day could shift the climate and make it less likely for more legal challenges from state attorneys general like their complaint about the Tegna transaction, COO Mike Biard replied, “From your lips to God’s ears.” He said the company’s appeal is aiming to narrow the scope of the complaint due to the plaintiffs’ “failure to articulate a plausible theory of injury to a sufficiently large number of their residents.”
DirecTV, which joined with the state AGs in filing the lawsuit shortly before the Tegna merger was approved by the FCC and swiftly closed by Nexstar, also factored into the earnings report. Without providing details, Nexstar said it reached a distribution deal with the major pay-TV operator during the quarter.
The CW, whose ratings increased 9% during the quarter, drew its biggest audience ever for a live sporting event with the August 30 football game between Florida State and New Mexico State. The contest drew just shy of 2 million viewers.
The 20-year-old broadcast network is projected to turn its first profit in the fourth quarter, execs reaffirmed. Asked whether the profitability would continue into 2027, CFO Lee Ann Gliha replied, “No, no, not for the full year,” though she then clarified that she didn’t know the full-year outlook for certain.
The CW “is still very much a nascent business, with tremendous upside,” Biard said. “It’s still on a positive trajectory, but it’s not where we want it to be, ultimately.”
That said, he argued the network has made a successful transition to live sports and expanded to a full 7-day programming week. Gliha estimated that sports accounts for about 50% of the network’s programming, though she declined to offer an estimate of its share of revenue.
Nexstar acquired a majority stake in The CW in 2022, with Skydance (whose CBS and Warner Bros. subsidiaries were 50-50 partners in the network) retaining about 20% of the network.
“When you look at what we’ve done in a relatively short period of time, particularly around sports, by acquiring rights, getting it produced on air, attracting a completely new audience now on a regular basis,” Biard said, “what that has done is really established our sports bona fides with really everybody who has rights to sell. So as marquee rights become available over the next couple of years, we’ll certainly be in dialogue with everyone who’s got something to sell, and we’ll look at everything.”