(Bloomberg) -- Nexstar Media Group Inc. won regulatory clearance to buy Tribune Media Co. and grow to nearly 200 stations.
The transaction, valued at $4.1 billion when announced last year, cleared the Federal Communications Commission on a 3-2 Republican-led vote, the agency said in an email Monday.
Nexstar anticipates completing the transaction “shortly,” the company said in an emailed statement that didn't specify a date.
Nexstar rose as much as 2.1% in New York trading. The company, with 174 stations that reach 100 markets, says it will grow to 197 stations when the deal closes.
Chicago-based Tribune has 42 stations including outlets in major cities such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Each company owns affiliates of all four major broadcast networks: CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox.
Tribune TV stations will gain access to reporting from Nexstar's Washington, D.C., news bureau and state news bureaus, the FCC said in its order approving the deal.
Both FCC Democrats dissented. The transaction creates a “broadcast behemoth” counter to tenets of diversity in broadcasting, Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said in an emailed statement. Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel cited Nexstar's “extraordinary reach” and criticized agency rules that let TV-station owners count just part of their audience for purposes of judging compliance with ownership limits.
Nexstar is trimming holdings to stay within TV-station ownership limits. It has announced sales of 21 stations in 16 markets for a total of $1.36 billion. The Justice Department cleared the deal in July.
FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly, a Republican, said Nexstar shouldn't have had to sell so many stations. “Forcing so many to be spun off is more consistent with the bygone era of black and white television and a dilapidated, out-of-touch philosophy than the modern high-tech world in which we live,” O'Rielly said in an emailed statement.
Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. bid earlier for Tribune, but its effort collapsed in 2018 after drawing the ire of regulators. Sinclair lists 191 stations.
“We're very pleased with today's decision by the FCC," Peter Kern, Tribune's chief executive officer, said in an emailed statement.
To contact the reporter on this story: Todd Shields in Washington at tshields3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net, Elizabeth Wasserman
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