Nexstar CEO: big tech swallowed local newspapers. Local TV could be next

For decades, outdated rules and regulations have constrained the ability of local television broadcasters — the providers of local news, the most trusted information available to Americans — to compete, grow, and invest in their own future. During that same time, a handful of Big Tech platforms have amassed unprecedented economic power, each one dwarfing all of traditional media and dramatically reshaping how Americans consume news and information. Companies like Google/You Tube, Tik Tok, Amazon, Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, and Netflix now reach virtually every screen in every home and every device in every pocket. Their scale is staggering. Today, YouTube accounts for one-eighth of all television viewing in the United States. One in four young adults report getting their news from TikTok. The advertising numbers are just as stark: according to S&P Global/Kagan, YouTube alone billed more in video advertising last year than all of broadcast television combined. In 2026, one Wall Street analyst predicts that just five digital entities — Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and TikTok — will control 65% of the advertising market, worth $260 billion. These companies are not built to prioritize fact-based journalism or civic discourse. Their business model rewards clicks, not accuracy or accountability. While their content competes with trusted, fact-based journalism in the commercial marketplace, it does not serve the same critical purpose in the marketplace of ideas that is so vital to the proper functioning of our democracy. That makes the threat these companies pose to local broadcasters and local news very real and very urgent. If all of this sounds somewhat familiar, it should. Local newspapers were once indispensable — deeply rooted in their communities and widely trusted. Then, with the rise of online news and advertising, their economics began to unravel. New competitors emerged with a scale and reach local publishers simply couldn’t match. The cons