“Nexstar delivered another quarter and year of solid financial results, while taking bold steps to better compete with big tech and big media.” That’s what Perry Sook, founder and Chairman/CEO of the nation’s biggest single-owner of broadcast television stations said as Nexstar Media Group released its fourth quarter 2025 earnings report.
How did the company that started 30 years ago with a single station in Wilkes Barre-Scranton do? It beat Wall Street forecasts on revenue but swung to a net loss, as adjusted EBITDA and adjusted Free Cash Flow fell sharply.
Yet, lower revenue was seen along with a swing to a net loss mirrors that of The E.W. Scripps Co., which reported its Q4 results after Wednesday’s Closing Bell for U.S. financial markets ahead of a 9am Eastern conference call for analysts and investors.
Total it up and Nexstar swung to a net loss of $166 million (-$5.63 per share), compared to net income of $241 million ($7.56 per diluted share) in Q4 2024.
Six analysts polled by Yahoo! Finance chimed in on Q4 revenue predictions, putting the consensus estimate at $1.25 billion. One analyst offered an earnings per share forecast of $3.55 per share.
The net revenue dip was due primarily to poor comps associated with political advertising seen during Q4 2024. In Q4 ’25, advertising revenue fell to $549 million, from $758 million, as a result. Non-political advertising increased 4.5%, but could not overcome the political crowd-out seen a year earlier.
Ahead of the company’s Q4 2025 earnings call, Sook noted that Nexstar during the final three months of last year successfully locked in fresh retransmission consent agreements with its lapsing distribution partners, avoiding an impasse and “blackout” of any Nexstar-owned channels. Distribution revenue, inclusive of retrans fees, grew to $720 million from $714 million thanks to increased rates, growth in virtual MVPD subscribers and more O&Os aligned with The CW Network. Still, Nexstar’s desire to include NewsNation, the company’s MVPD-distributed channel, in local MVPD retransmission agreements has become a matter of contention, as seen in Ohio with Altafiber and its efforts to prevent Nexstar from bundling NewsNation with WDTN-2 in Dayton.
Sook also noted that Nexstar achieved better-than-expected growth in non-political advertising revenues.
Additionally, The CW Network “exceeded financial expectations for the year” as it benefited “from our sports programming strategy.”
That said, the net loss is linked to two distinct reasons that go beyond the poor comps linked to big political ad revenue in Q4 2024: the impairment of an equity investment related to the performance of the TV Food Network LLC, in which Nexstar owns a 31.3% interest, and increased one-time corporate expenses from Nexstar’s pending acquisition of TEGNA Inc.
Investors expressed a little displeasure with the results and guidance in pre-market trading on Thursday, but that quickly disappeared as the morning trading began. Just after 11am Eastern, Nasdaq-traded “NXST” was up by more than 5%, to $244.99 — another record high as company executives anticipate FCC approval of its rule-busting merger with TEGNA. Sources tell RBR+TVBR that the Commission could be just days away from granting its approval of the deal, likely with waivers ahead of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would adjust the current 39% national television ownership reach cap put in place by Congress 22 years ago.
Meanwhile, Nexstar has borne the brunt of multiple mainstream press reports that it has engaged in notable layoffs at WGN-9 in Chicago, KTLA-5 in Los Angeles and Mission Broadcasting-owned and Nexstar-managed WPIX-11 in New York. The departures of on-air talent including Mark Kriski at KTLA are likely tied to the company’s expense management plan ahead of its hopeful closing of the TEGNA merger.
As of December 31, 2025, the consolidated debt of Nexstar and Mission Broadcasting, Inc., an independently owned variable interest entity that serves as the licensee of such stations as WPIX-11 in New York, was $6.333 billion. This includes senior secured debt of $3.6 billion. This compares to $6.523 billion in total debt at the end of 2024.
