Nexstar is a U.S. television and radio company, owning nearly 200 nation-wide and local stations with associated digital platforms
Since revenue from traditional TV is generally declining, the entire broadcasting industry’s equity trades at steep discounts and investors expect a convincing digitalization strategy
To impress investors, Nexstar mentions “digital” 64 times in their latest annual report and touts their “assets include 138 websites and 229 mobile applications across our local stations, NewsNation and The Hill. The portfolio also includes eight connected television applications and three free ad-supported television (“FAST”) channels from The CW and The Hill.” Nexstar’s shares trade close to its all-time high and at a hefty premium against competitors.
We took a closer look and found that web traffic, app downloads and overall interest in Nexstar’s digital offers are rapidly declining throughout the whole portfolio. Their digital offers are mostly technically outdated by a decade or so.
We interviewed sixteen former Nexstar executives and directors, who all expressed great frustration regarding Nexstar’s poor digital strategy. All of them—without exception—see Nexstar in deep trouble. We have never experienced such a consistently negative sentiment by insiders about any of the companies we researched. The most common issues raised were:
Nexstar’s digital strategy is mostly virtue signaling to investors by acquiring digital businesses with great fanfare, and no serious strategy by a “fake it till you make it management class”
The leadership seems oddly ignorant of all new media technology
The leadership is propping up hopes for a linear TV future because Nexstar could never make their digital assets work
Current earnings are reported on the back of extreme underinvestment in new technology and employees; instead, Nexstar bought back stock and paid dividends to appear financially strong
2024 was an unusually good business year due to political ads but this gravy train is drying out since Trump won mostly through social media like Joe Rogan’s podcast
Acquired digital assets are underutilized and development is usually stalled—expensive assets like BestReviews.com serve no function; apps and websites are outdated
Nexstar lacks far behind direct competitors regarding its operational technology
The leadership wants to “ride-out” the remaining cash flows from linear TV until they personally retire soon
No strategy or even interest is in place to attract a younger audience
One former executive said that Nexstar has only “one and a half year of stability” left
Nexstar Digital has a record low of 2.3 of 5 stars on Glassdoor from 102 employee reviews, because insiders know about the terrible quality of the company
Many of Nexstar’s digital assets are barely used. Most of the assets with users see strongly declining engagement.
The CW, Nexstar’s key asset for entertainment to younger audiences, declined by between 76% to 95% in user interest, web traffic, and app usage
com, Nexstar’s key digital asset for consumer insights, audience growth and monetization are basically sidelined with only 6% of former web traffic left
Other large digital assets for Nexstar, by The Hill and NewsNation have seen a decline in traffic and interest over the last two to three years, with decreases ranging from 20% to 53%
While leading media apps are rated between 4 and 5 stars in the app stores, Nexstar’s apps rate far below 4 or even 3 stars due to them being technically outdated
Most Nexstar apps are localized news and weather apps with barely any downloads
The 138 websites and apps are almost all content platforms from the same outdated boilerplate design with strongly declining overall interest
While Nexstar has uploaded hundreds of thousands of videos on its YouTube channels, most of these videos have barely more than a few thousand views. On average, a Nexstar video on YouTube creates less than  of income per year.
Interest in other national Nexstar brands is down massively in web traffic (-73% to -94%) and Google Trends (-30% to -94%) from their peak
Studies show that consumers prefer social media platforms for news. As a result, local news station companies, like Nexstar, have continued to lose their audience
Our negative sentiment is supported by insiders aggressively selling shares during a time when the company buys back shares
From past acquisitions, Nexstar reports ,922M in goodwill at a total shareholders’ equity of only ,242M. We believe a substantial portion of this goodwill should be written off, given the terrible future prospects of Nexstar’s business.
In conclusion, Nexstar may not benefit from its legacy TV business for as long as it expects, and the company appears unable to effectively pivot its strategy to the highly competitive and rapidly growing digital market.
Introduction
Nexstar Media Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: NXST) is a media company that produces and distributes local and national news, sports and entertainment content across its television and digital platforms. Nexstar owns America’s largest local television broadcasting group comprised of network affiliates, with more than 200 owned or partner stations in 116 U.S. markets. Linear TV is declining nationally and locally, resulting in media companies needing a convincing digital strategy. Nexstar’s portfolio of digital assets include 140 local websites, 278 mobile applications, 25 connected television applications, and six free ad supported television (“FAST”) channels.

More ... latest change: 2025-04-30