To Little Surprise, DirecTV Launches Its Own Anti-Nexstar Fight

It played an integral role in getting the word out that eight Attorneys General have sued to try to stop Nexstar Media Group from completing its terrain-altering and industry-shifting merger with TEGNA. Now, DirecTV has confirmed that it has filed its own federal antitrust lawsuit with the aim of doing what Washington lobbyists couldn’t — killing the transaction.

The federal antitrust lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California’s Sacramento Division on the same day California’s Attorney General took similar legal action, alleges that the proposed merger between broadcast giants Nexstar Media Group and TEGNA violates the federal antitrust laws and “would significantly harm consumers.”

Why? DirecTV uses its boilerplate language shared with every retransmission consent impasse that arises between the direct broadcast satellite service provider and a TV station ownership group, alleging the merger between TEGNA and Nexstar “will irreparably drive up consumer costs, reduce local competition, shutter local newsrooms, and increase both the frequency and duration of blackouts of key local teams and network programming.”

This suggests that future retransmission consent negotiations with Nexstar will be testy from the onset, with DirecTV refusing to accept that the company’s increased value to viewers of all of its stations — following investments in local programming, the continued desire for broadcast network fare, and costs tied to the rollout of NEXTGEN TV — deserve increased compensation while MVPDs pocket the profits.

A DirecTV spokesperson contacted by RBR+TVBR for comment by email was quick to note that the state Attorneys General reached an agreement to sue on their own — despite the timing and shared fight themes against Nexstar and TEGNA. “DIRECTV is not privy to these discussions,” the DirecTV representative noted. “We (and other companies, we understand) did provide them with information at their request. And, of course, we agree with their assessment and have therefore decided to sue in parallel.”

CONSOLIDATION HARMS?

The combination of Nexstar and TEGNA, in DirecTV’s view, would be particularly harmful to more than 25 million TV homes. It points to markets such as Austin; Buffalo-Niagara Falls; Charlotte; Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio; Denver; Indianapolis; Memphis; New Orleans; Portland, Ore.; San Diego; St. Louis; and Tampa-St. Petersburg, among others.

“These are all cities where Nexstar would own at least two, and sometimes three, of the most influential and widely watched local stations,” DirecTV notes. “Many of these cities are home to top professional or collegiate sports teams, enabling Nexstar to suspend local fans’ access, only to then ransom them back for higher guaranteed fees.”

This, of course, assumes that DirecTV will be wholly unwilling to negotiate with Nexstar on terms deemed mutually fair, suggesting that the nation’s No. 1 broadcast television company has an easier argument to file a good faith violation with the FCC should a future impasse transpire.

DirecTV also believes that in new duopoly DMAs that happen to involve state capitals, “where reduced competition would limit the diversity of local news coverage,” it has “evidence” for the FCC and others that wherever Nexstar already operates similar “duopolies,” it reduces alternate viewpoints and competition for stories by using one newsroom, one news director, one online news site, and spreads the editorial staff to create news content shared and frequently repeated across two station newscasts.

This is not unique to Nexstar. In West Palm Beach, Scripps-owned WPTV-5 has long produced newscasts for Gray Media-owned WFLX-29, sharing journalists and news content across the two stations.