Tribune is no more…

Nexstar took control of the Tribune stations yesterday and now it will be watch and wait to see what they do with the stations.

Nexstar now becomes the largest TV ownership group in the country.

CEO Perry Sook welcomed the Tribune employees into the Nexstar fold with an internal memo.

Of course, FTVLive obtained a copy:

-------- Original message --------

From: Perry Sook <psook@nexstar.tv>
Date: 9/19/19
To:
Subject: Welcome to the New Nexstar

Today marks a historic milestone for Nexstar Media Group and Tribune Media Company—today, with the closing of the transaction that brings these two great companies together, we are ONE company. Today is the first day of the “New Nexstar.” Today we are the largest company in the US media industry focused on local broadcasting, cable television, and digital media.

Our “new” broadcast company is the largest in our nation’s history and will be able to reach over 69 million local television households or approximately 63% of the US population with 197 owned or serviced television stations in 115 US TV markets. Our digital assets, namely 142 local websites and 316 local mobile apps, reach 106 million combined unique digital users. The linear and digital platforms of the New Nexstar have truly extraordinary reach.

I want to take a moment to thank everyone who worked so hard these last nine months to bring this transaction to a successful conclusion. Perhaps even more important—whether you are a long-time Nexstar employee or you are just joining us from Tribune Media—I want to thank all of you at our media businesses across the company for your unwavering focus and commitment to serving our customers, viewers, users, and communities during the acquisition process. Your passion and hard work have not gone unnoticed.

Nexstar was built on a commitment to serving its communities by producing and airing the best possible local news and content—we now produce more than 254,000 hours of it annually, which is more hours of local content than any other media company. I’m very proud of the work that our 5,400 local journalists do each day in producing relevant, interesting, and informative local content and in the coming year we have plans to expand local news and programming at each one of our newly acquired stations. And that’s just one element of our plan for growth.

For all of you, our 13,000 employees, there is a lot of opportunity ahead. Wherever you work, in whatever line of our businesses you are in, I can assure you that outstanding work is recognized and rewarded at Nexstar. As I like to say: “Those who do well will be offered the opportunity to do more.”

With that in mind, I am pleased to announce that three executives from the Tribune management team will be joining Nexstar leadership team effective immediately—

Sean Compton has been named Executive Vice President, WGN America, WGN Radio and Director of Content Acquisition. He’ll be responsible for the management and oversight of these media properties, as well as the digital multicast television network, Antenna TV. Sean will oversee Nexstar’s programming acquisitions across all platforms.

Dana Zimmer joins us as Executive Vice President, Chief Distribution and Strategy Officer. Dana is responsible for the distribution and monetization of the company’s broadcast and cable television content portfolio to the cable, satellite, telco, and digital media industries, including our 197 local TV stations and WGN America. She will also spearhead content deals with our network partners at FOX, CBS, NBC, ABC, and The CW.

Gary Weitman has been named Executive Vice President and Chief Communication Officer, responsible for internal and external communications, media relations, employee communication, and Nexstar’s intranet and external website, Nexstar.tv.

Now, some important housekeeping information. For those of you joining us from Tribune, you will be given credit for your years of service at Tribune in terms of qualification for Nexstar’s benefit and vacation policies. You will remain on your current Tribune benefit plans and payroll system for the remainder of 2019. It will cost the company a bit more in the short term but will ensure that you are not hit with double withholding taxes or double health insurance deductibles in this partial year period. Nothing changes until January 1, 2020, at which point you will transition over to Nexstar’s benefit plans. Beginning in October, Nexstar’s Human Resources team will be conducting on-site employee meetings to review those plans and get you ready for Open Enrollment in November.

I will host a town hall meeting for all of our employees Friday at 1:30 pm CT, which we will broadcast to all our locations. We’ll talk about our top priorities for the remainder of 2019 and set some expectations through year-end and beyond.

To the thousands of you joining us from the company formerly known as Tribune, welcome to the Nexstar Nation! We are excited to have you as partners, and we are going to do great things together. We are #NexstarNationProud!

Best,