The single-largest owner of broadcast television stations, which also owns WGN Radio, the NewsNation cable news channel, Capitol Hill-focused news brand The Hill and a majority stake in The CW Network, has decided when it will share its financial results for the second quarter of 2026.
What can Nexstar Media Group investors expect to hear from CEO Perry Sook, CFO Lee Ann Gliha and President/COO Michael Biard?
With the answers coming on August 6, with a 10am Eastern conference call scheduled for analysts and interested parties, Nexstar has offered little to any guidance of its own when it comes to how it believed the company’s fiscal performance would be from April through June of this year.
There were two key reasons why Nexstar offered no forward-looking guidance during its May 7 Q1 2026 earnings call. First, the company pointed to current litigation — a reference to its trio of federal court cases tied to Nexstar’s merger with TEGNA, which must remain a “hold separate” company per a preliminary injunction from a Sacramento-based U.S. District Court judge. This has created “operational uncertainty,” and as such Nexstar management “encourages review of TEGNA’s pre-deal public projections.”
Still, Nexstar offered investors a peek at what its Q2 expenses would look like, as the company shared it was currently projecting capital expenditures in the $45 million range as second quarter cash taxes were estimated to finish in the $152 million range.
Additionally, payments for programming are expected to be in excess of amortization by about $5 million for Q2.
Meanwhile, Nexstar’s outstanding debt at the completion of Q1 2026 was $12.1 billion, reflecting an increase from $6.3 billion at the end of 2025.
This, Nexstar explained, reflects the impact of the TEGNA acquisition. Nexstar’s cash balance at the close of Q1 2026 was $379 million, including $12 million related to The CW. And, as Nexstar designated The CW as an unrestricted subsidiary, “the losses associated with The CW are not accounted for in our calculation of leverage for purposes of our credit agreement,” Gliha said during the Q1 2026 earnings call in early May.
Furthermore, Gliha shared that the Nexstar Q2 2026 cash flow “will be deployed first to fulfill our mandatory obligations, including debt repayment, pension and defined benefit plan contributions, our dividend, and then, optionally, repay any additional debt with excess cash flow.”
Emphasizing that guidance will be up to analysts, Gliha responded to a question from Stiefel analyst Dan Kurnos by noting, “You can think of Nexstar Media Group Inc. as continuing to execute on our plan, doing an excellent operational job as we normally do on a go-forward basis. We are completely dialed in and focused on executing on the Nexstar Media Group Inc. plan. And I think TEGNA similarly is focused on executing their plan. We are not going to be providing any longer-term guidance with respect to either company at this point.”
As U.S. financial markets opened on Tuesday (7/7), Nasdaq-traded Nexstar shares were on the rise, fueled by insider trading in recent days that saw Sook snag some $1.8 million worth of “NXST” stock just before the conclusion of Q2.
One analyst reporting to Yahoo! Finance offered an earnings per share estimate for Nexstar in Q2, and that comes in at $7.44, up from $3.22. That likely includes the TEGNA financials, thus making comparisons to last year dependent on an adjusted report reflecting same-station profit and loss reports.
Some 7 analysts chimed in with revenue estimates for Q2 2026, and 61.1% sales growth is forecast, with a consensus revenue prediction of $1.98 billion the number Nexstar must meet or exceed.
Of the last four quarters, Nexstar failed to meet analysts’ EPS estimates once — in Q3 2025.
