Nexstar Posts Record $2.13 Billion Q3 Revenue on TEGNA, Political Ads

Nexstar Media Group booked record third-quarter revenue of $2.13 billion, up 78% from a year earlier, with the TEGNA acquisition contributing $765 million and political advertising doing the rest of the lifting. On a combined basis — both companies counted in the prior-year period — revenue still grew 15.4%, Chief Operating Officer Michael Biard said on the earnings call. The bottom of the cash statement was louder: adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) more than doubled to $756 million from $358 million, and adjusted free cash flow jumped to $443 million from $166 million. On a combined basis, adjusted EBITDA was $496 million in the third quarter of 2025.

How big was political advertising?

Combined Nexstar and TEGNA net political advertising revenue hit a record $1.1 billion, up 31% from 2022 and 29% from 2024, founder, Chairman and CEO Perry Sook said. CFO Lee Ann Gliha clarified that the figure includes TEGNA for the full year, and roughly $32 million of TEGNA political revenue from the first quarter won't appear in Nexstar's reported results.

Third-quarter political revenue was $317 million, up 15% from the combined 2024 quarter and 44% from the combined 2022 period, Biard said. Sook named Ohio, Texas, California, Michigan and Maine as the strongest markets.

Sook credited the extension of lowest-unit-rate pricing (federally mandated discounted ad rates for political candidates) with pulling more campaign money onto broadcast television. He called the spending environment potentially a "new normal," absent changes to campaign finance laws, and said Nexstar believes it gained share through improvements in its political ad sales operations.

The flip side: combined non-political advertising revenue fell 5%, partly because political ads displaced other advertisers. Strip out that displacement, and the decline was in the low single digits, Sook said. For the fourth quarter, Nexstar expects combined non-political ad revenue down by high single digits, again on political crowd-out.

What's happening with distribution and The CW?

Distribution revenue rose 53.9% to $1.09 billion, including $351 million from TEGNA. On a combined basis it grew just 2.1%, as legacy Nexstar growth was partly offset by a TEGNA decline. Biard said the company completed every distribution agreement up for renewal during the quarter without service interruptions, and confirmed a concluded DIRECTV deal — but declined to discuss its terms.

The CW remains on track for its first profitable quarter in Q4 2026, with Gliha maintaining guidance for a roughly 30%-or-better improvement in the network's full-year losses. Asked whether The CW would be profitable for all of 2027, she said she didn't know. Sook noted The CW's total-day viewership rose 9% year over year, and the network will air nearly 800 hours of sports annually after programming additions. NewsNation's total-day viewership climbed 34% year to date.

Where does the balance sheet stand?

Nexstar ended September with $11.4 billion in outstanding debt and $446 million in cash. It repaid $350 million during the quarter and another $525 million after quarter-end — $1.3 billion in total reduction this year, including post-quarter payments. The company paid $58 million in dividends and made no share repurchases.

Total net leverage (debt net of cash, divided by EBITDA) stood at 4.04 times. Gliha said the goal is to bring leverage closer to three times than four, without setting a specific trigger for changing capital allocation priorities. The first-lien covenant ratio was 3.03 times against a 4.75-times limit.

A preliminary injunction still blocks full integration with TEGNA. Nexstar is appealing to narrow it to the 31 markets where both companies own major-network stations and to remove the states from the case. The Ninth Circuit hears the appeal on Nov. 17, 2026; trial on the underlying claims is set for July 6, 2027. Because of the tight window between that trial and the September 2027 deadline for realizing credit-agreement synergies, Gliha said Nexstar removed anticipated TEGNA synergies from its leverage calculation.

One line to take away: record revenue and $1.3 billion of debt paydown, but the TEGNA integration clock is now a courtroom clock.