Press Releases
04/18/2026
Attorney General Tong Secures Critical Win in Nexstar/Tegna Merger Challenge, Court Orders Titans to Halt Merging
(Hartford, CT) — Attorney General William Tong today issued the following statement after the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California granted a preliminary injunction halting the merger of Tegna Inc. (Tegna) and Nexstar Media Group, Inc. (Nexstar) while litigation in this case proceeds. The companies previously recently received rushed and improper merger approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the U.S. Department of Justice. A coalition of eight attorneys general requested an emergency order to halt integration despite the federal government’s empty process. Friday's preliminary injunction follows a temporary restraining order granted last month in the challenge brought by DIRECTV. Since then, the court has consolidated the states’ case with DIRECTV’s related case.“We challenged this merger because it would give unprecedented control of local news to a single company and yesterday, the court agreed to halt the deal. This kind of consolidation doesn’t just reduce competition, it threatens local journalism and drives up costs to consumers. We are going to continue our fight to stop this deal,” said Attorney General Tong.
On March 18, Attorney General Tong joined a coalition of eight attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to block the merger, a deal that is expected to create the largest broadcast station group in the United States, put more broadcast programming in the hands of fewer people, cut local jobs, increase cable bills, and significantly impact the delivery of news and other media content to Americans nationwide.
If allowed to proceed, this multibillion-dollar deal would combine the nation’s largest and third-largest television-station conglomerates, creating a titan covering 80% of U.S. television households. In Connecticut, Nexstar would control 63.6 percent of the state's “Big Four” network television market, one of the largest post-merger increases in Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), a well-established method for measuring market concentration. The loss of competition between Nexstar and Tegna will also likely lead to the consolidation of local television newsrooms. It will likely lead to the consolidation of Nexstar’s News 8 and Tegna's Fox 61, leaving only NBC CT and Eyewitness News 3 as independent.
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Media Contact:
Elizabeth Benton
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