Profile

Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is a publicly traded American telecommunications company with headquarter offices in Irving, Texas, New York City, and Chicago. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 television stations across the U.S., most of which are affiliates with the four "major" U.S. television networks. It also operates all of the stations owned by affiliated companies, such as Mission Broadcasting, Shield Media, and Vaughan Media, under local marketing agreements. The Nexstar Media Group was founded as the Nexstar Broadcasting Group on June 17, 1996. The first television station bought by Nexstar was WYOU in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Nexstar bought WYOU from Diversified Communications. The sale was completed on September 28 of that year. Nexstar promptly fired two beloved anchors and laid off several long-term staff members. Nexstar founder Perry Sook said that WYOU would be Nexstar's flagship station, keeping an office off the newsroom for years.[citation needed] In 1998, Nexstar purchased WBRE-TV in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Because this was in the same market as WYOU, WYOU was 'sold' to Mission Broadcasting. This began the first ever 'shared-services' agreement between stations. WYOU's sales staff was kept in Scranton while the production and news operations were moved to WBRE's offices in Wilkes-Barre. WYOU's staff who were not laid off were fired by Nexstar, hired by Mission and eventually rehired by Nexstar. Mission Broadcasting then paid Nexstar to operate and control the production and newsgathering operations while Mission kept the sales and management team.[citation needed]