The Internal Nexstar Email

FTVLive told you that Nexstar has now taken a controlling interest in the little-watched CW network.

Many inside Nexstar think it is just a matter of time before you start seeing News Nation shows on The CW.

As a person working in a Nexstar newsroom, you would hope that the company stays focused on TV news. But, judging by the internal memo that was sent to the staff about them taking over The CW, it appears that it is all about revenue, national advertising, and video on demand.

It seems that the suits at Nexstar have grown bored with TV news and are moving their toys to a different sandbox.

Here is the internal memo sent to the staff from Uncle Perry and the gang.

From: Nexstar Media Communications
Date: August 15, 2022 at 7:07:42 AM EDT
Subject: Nexstar Acquires The CW Network

Just a short time ago, we issued the attached press release announcing that Nexstar has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire The CW Network; as the press release notes, The CW’s current co-owners, Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc., and Paramount Global, will each retain an interest in the network and will produce original scripted content for the network’s 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 broadcast seasons.

The CW is an incredibly powerful national platform and Nexstar, along with its partner stations, is the nation’s the largest CW affiliate group—we have 37 CW and CW Plus affiliates, including five of the top-ten television markets, accounting for 32 percent of the network’s national reach.  We think the transaction is compelling for a number of reasons, enabling us to:

Create more revenue opportunities for our CW affiliates, Prioritize programing for the network’s broadcast audience,Diversify our content offerings beyond news,Increase our exposure to the national advertising market, and,Establish Nexstar as an important player in advertising video-on-demand services.

This transaction is a further demonstration of our content-first acquisition strategy.  We believe The CW has a great deal of untapped potential and we intend to utilize our significant broadcast programming, network, and operational experience to improve the network’s performance through our management of it.   

We expect this transaction to close in the third quarter, and we are very much looking forward to the possibilities ahead.

Perry, Tom, Lee Ann