March 19 (UPI) -- The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday approved the sale of Tegna and its television stations to Nexstar, which will now have a media footprint that reaches 60% of U.S. households.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said in a press release that the agency waived a rule prohibiting one company from owning enough broadcast television stations to reach that much of the country.
New York Attorney General Letitia James and the attorneys general from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, North Carolina, Oregon and Virginia, as well as DirectTV, have filed suit to prevent the merger, which would create the single largest broadcast television group in the country and limit competition.
Carr pinned the decision on the two-decade long decline of local newspapers in cities and towns of all sizes across the United States, and said that allowing Nexstar to underwrite these stations is good for people.
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