Justice Department Reaches Settlement With Nexstar Media Group Inc. in Ongoing Television Broadcaster Information Exchange Investigation

The Department of Justice has reached a settlement with Nexstar Media Group, one of the largest owners of television stations in the country, as part of its ongoing investigation into exchanges of competitively sensitive information in the broadcast television industry. The Department filed an amended complaint in the case United States v. Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc., et al., adding Nexstar Media Group Inc. as a defendant.  At the same time, the Department filed a proposed settlement with Nexstar that, if approved by the court, would resolve the competitive harm alleged in the complaint.  The Department filed its original complaint in the case on Nov. 13, 2018, along with proposed settlements with six other television broadcasting companies.

According to the amended complaint, Nexstar agreed with other entities in many metropolitan areas across the United States to exchange revenue pacing information, and also engaged in the exchange of other forms of non-public sales information in certain metropolitan areas.  Pacing compares a broadcast station’s revenues booked for a certain time period to the revenues booked in the same point in the previous year.  Pacing indicates how each station is performing versus the rest of the market and provides insight into each station’s remaining spot advertising for the period. By exchanging pacing information, Nexstar and other broadcasters were better able to anticipate whether their competitors were likely to raise, maintain, or lower spot advertising prices, which in turn helped inform their stations’ own pricing strategies and negotiations with advertisers.  As a result, the information exchanges harmed the competitive price-setting process.

The proposed settlement prohibits the direct or indirect sharing of such competitively sensitive information.