D.C. Memo: OAN Joins Newsmax in Voicing Opposition to Nexstar-TEGNA

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TV Merger: Chris Ruddy, you have company. One America News Network (OAN) has come out against the proposed $6.2 billion merger between Nexstar Media Group and TEGNA, urging regulators to preserve a federal television ownership limit that stands in the way of the deal. Ruddy is CEO of Newsmax, a conservative cable news channel, and also a Kitchen Cabinet-type confidant of President Trump. Ruddy has strongly indicated he will take the FCC to court if it relaxed a key national ownership rule to accommodate the Nexstar-TEGNA transaction. He has gone so far as to predict the courts will slap an injunction on the agency headed by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a Republican Trump appointee, to stop the deal. If approved, Nexstar-TEGNA would create the nation’s largest broadcast TV group, with 265 stations reaching about 60% of U.S. households — well above the current 39% cap set by Congress in 2004. OAN President Charles Herring reaffirmed the network’s opposition in a post on X last week, calling any effort to raise the cap a threat to competition. “FREE MARKETS V. QUASI-MONOPOLY,” Herring wrote. “OAN has consistently opposed lifting the 39% BROADCAST OWNERSHIP CAP.” Nexstar CEO Perry Sook said the deal was needed to give his Texas-based company the scale to compete with national media groups and Big Tech players like Amazon and Google. (More after paywall.)