While on our annual vacation, the good folks at TVNewsCheck.com have issued their annual list of the Top 25 TV Station Groups, the definitive ranking of the companies that own the vast majority of this nation’s local television outlets. We fully admit to having a begrudging respect for TVNewsCheck as the de facto daily trade publication of the television business. While in many respects, a shadow of the long-departed Broadcasting magazine that once filled that role, and often featuring little more than a collection of links to other publications and newsletters that cover this industry (though notably never the newsletter you are reading right now), TVNewsCheck does carry on some key traditions of Broadcasting, and the annual top TV Station Groups list is one of those traditions.
And we have some thoughts about this year’s edition.
Right off the bat, as if to underline the inevitable conclusion of the drawn-out drama of Nexstar’s battle to fully acquire rival group owner Tegna, TVNewsCheck has gone ahead and combined the two companies in its compilation of this year’s Top 25 Station Groups list. While it would be easy to critique this decision, rather than keeping the two separate, since that is how they are still considered by the U.S. District Court that is hearing the lawsuits against the merger—which, after all, was approved by both the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission, the regulatory bodies that needed to sign off on the transaction.
In last year’s version of this list, Tegna ranked as the 4th-largest station group; now, combined with Nexstar, the pair dominate the list from the top spot with $7.6 billion in revenue. For reference, that’s more than twice the just under $3 billion in revenue earned by the number 2 company on the list, Atlanta-based Gray Television. (Any wonder why there are forces that want to force the uncoupling of Nexstar and Tegna, and, in turn, its control of local stations in 132 markets, reaching 80% of the nation’s television households?)
The only potential challenger to Nexstar-Tegna in size would be the proposed, but rejected, union of the #3 and #8 companies on the TVNewsCheck list, that being Sinclair and E.W. Scripps. With a presence in 82 and 73 local markets, respectively, our rough calculations put their combined reach at about 115 markets total, with about 65% of the nation’s TVHH reached.
It is important to remember that Sinclair still holds nearly a 10% stake in Scripps’ stock, which is currently worth north of $25 million, but the Scripps board rejected Sinclair’s offer last November to buy the rest of the company at $7 a share. (That’s more than double the $3.32 price that SSP shares closed at on August 24th, 2026.) The Scripps board also adopted so-called “poison pill” measures that would make Sinclair's offer to merge the companies far less financially attractive—let alone their privately stated distaste for the practices of the Smith-family-led Sinclair.
Whatever one may think of Sinclair, they are still amongst the top three entrants on the TVNewsCheck list, even without adding Scripps. Though doing so would firmly vault the combination into the number two spot behind Nexstar-Tegna in local markets and television households reached. But in terms of revenue, a combined Sinclair-Scripps would only generate a projected $4 billion annually, about 55% of what Nexstar-Tegna is looking at taking in.
Should Scripps find a more palatable potential partner in #2 group owner Gray, it would likely be only slightly better off on the balance sheet. A merger of Scripps and Gray would likely net a footprint across some 160 local markets, with coverage of 60 to 63% of the nation’s television households. The combined entity would have an annual revenue projected at just over $4 billion, because Gray generates just $238 million more than Sinclair did in the 2025 estimates.
The next four positions on TV NewsCheck’s list are occupied by the network-owned and operated groups, with FOX leading the way in the #4 position. The Rupert Murdoch and family-controlled group of stations lands in that position because it covers the largest percentage of the country (39.2%) among the O&O groups and it had the highest total revenue in 2025 (roughly $2.36 billion). It’s followed by NBC/Universal at #5, with 31 NBC and Telemundo O&Os bringing in total revenues of nearly $2.15 billion.
Paramount’s CBS-owned stations group puts the David Ellison-led company at #6 on the list with 18 stations reeling in just over $2 billion in revenue, while covering some 37.7% of the nation’s TV households. Bringing up the rear in the O&O groups is Disney’s 8 ABC stations, which reach only 22% of the nation’s TVHH, but throw off an outsized $1.64 billion in revenue. That’s not surprising given the long-standing audience strength of those 8 stations in each of their local markets.
Following previously mentioned Scripps at the #8 spot is Hispanic broadcaster TelevisaUnivision, which comes in with 25 local stations reaching 45% of the nation’s households with television sets, generating just over $1 billion in annual revenue for 2025.
Rounding out the top ten at the #10 position is privately held Hearst Television, part of the Hearst publishing empire. Hearst is in some 27 local markets, covering just under 20% of the TVHH in the country and generating an estimated $945 million in annual revenue. (We should acknowledge that TVNewsCheck’s list cites revenue figures provided by BIA Advisory Services, which is the gold standard source for financial data on television stations and local markets nationally. They do the work to know all the financial metrics in the local television business.)
The rest of the TVNewsCheck list of the Top 25 Station Groups ranges from groups as large as Chicago-based Weigel (#16), with 33 stations, but in total, it generated only $121 million in 2025 revenue. Compare that to #15 Sunbeam Television, with just 2 stations, which throw off $168 million in revenue from the Boston and Miami markets. (That number should rise now that, in Miami, Sunbeam has both the FOX and ABC affiliations on its WSVN there.)
Speaking of Miami, there is the odd group of “just one station” (with apologies to WSVN, which often uses that tagline in its newscasts). That “group” consists only of WPLG, the single station owned by Berkshire Hathaway. The former ABC affiliate, now a local news-focused outlet, generated just over $100 million in revenue during 2025. That was while it still had ABC on the air for about eight months. It will be interesting to see what the final revenue figure will be for a full year without a network in 2026.
All in, the top 25 TV station groups brought in approximately $27.2 billion in total revenue for 2025. Interestingly enough, that amount is almost equally split between advertising dollars ($14.1 billion) and retransmission fees (collected from cable, satellite, and streaming platforms at $13.1 billion)
We thought it was worth noting that back in 2019, the list of what was “The Top 30 TV Station Groups” from TVNewsCheck cited that the groups generated a total of $25.6 billion in annual revenue (less in total than 2025), but that was made up of more advertising dollars ($15.6 billion) and less retransmission fees ($10 billion).
Obviously, the groups have been challenged by ad dollars continuing to be siphoned off by digital outlets. In contrast, they continue to squeeze for more retransmission dollars from the various platforms that carry their signals. Witness the current move by DuJuan McCoy’s Circle City Broadcasting to push DirecTV to pay once again to carry its WISH-TV and WNDY in Indianapolis, in exchange for a deal to keep carrying WRTV, the ABC affiliate there. As we publish this, DirecTV has taken WRTV off its platform over the move.
As the industry consolidates, leverage against cable, satellite, and streaming platforms to pay higher retransmission fees grows. As will the number of disputes over renewing these agreements, which will continue to temporarily interrupt carriage of these local TV stations while these negotiations likely become more contentious.
One more final note from 2019: TVNewsCheck’s list that year of the largest TV Station Groups was topped by Nexstar, which had arrived at that position through its acquisition of the stations previously owned by Tribune Broadcasting. That acquisition gave Nexstar stations in the nation’s four largest markets (New York-WPIX, Los Angeles-KTLA, Chicago-WGN and Philadelphia-WPHL) for the first time. Nexstar has led the list ever since.
All of this leads us to wonder if in six more years, will TV NewsCheck’s annual list be down to just the Top 20 TV Station Groups?
Maybe even fewer?
Because it sure seems like—if nothing else changes—the biggest players will keep getting bigger.
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