Federal judge blocks Nexstar-Tegna TV station merger until antitrust lawsuit is settled - BERITAJA

A national judge has blocked a $6.2 cardinal merger of section tv giants Nexstar Media Group and rival Tegna until an antitrust suit is resolved.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Troy L. Nunley successful Sacramento, California, made the ruling precocious Friday afternoon, uncovering that 8 attorneys wide and DirecTV were apt to prevail successful their ineligible bid to extremity the merger. The attorneys general, each Democrats, and DirecTV contend the merger will lead to higher prices for consumers, stifle section publicity and that the woody runs afoul of national laws designed to protect against monopolies.

The deal, announced past year and approved by the Federal Communications Commission, would create a institution that owns 265 tv stations successful 44 states and the District of Columbia, about of them section affiliates of 1 of the “Big Four” nationalist networks: ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC.

That would apt springiness Nexstar the powerfulness to raise the retransmission fees it charges to video programming distributors for illustration DirecTV, which intends higher bills for consumers, Nunley wrote. The institution besides has a way grounds of consolidating section tv news stations erstwhile it owns much than 1 position successful a market, the judge said, meaning viewers “will suffer options for wherever to get their section news.”

The woody could besides unit distributors for illustration DirecTV to comply pinch Nexstar’s demands for higher broadcast fees aliases consequence leaving subscribers perchance incapable to watch things for illustration Sunday NFL shot games, the judge said.

Stopping the merger for now is “in the nationalist interest,” Nunley wrote.

Attorneys representing Nexstar and Tegna did not instantly respond to a petition for comment.

Nexstar’s attorneys told the tribunal the woody has already been reviewed and cleared by the FCC and the Department of Justice. They said the FCC bid commits the institution to grow section publicity and programming, not shrink it.

The merger needed the support of the Republican Trump administration’s FCC because the authorities had to waive rules that limit really galore section stations 1 institution could own. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said successful March that the institution had agreed to divest itself of six stations.

The judge said the FCC clearance process for the woody was “unusual,” and that the regulatory oversight “did not curb the manifest anticompetitive effects of this acquisition.”

The Department of Justice, which is tasked pinch conducting antitrust reviews of these types of mergers, announced it was closing its investigation of the woody successful March done “early termination,” the judge noted, ending the reappraisal process sooner than is usually required by statute.

“In different circumstances — pinch the FCC’s quasi-adjudicatory licensing proceeding still pending — the President himself weighed successful publically successful February and urged national regulators to o.k. the woody to ‘knock retired the Fake News,’” Nunley wrote.

The preliminary injunction is designed to support things arsenic they are until the suit is afloat decided, Nunley said.

New York Attorney General Letitia James called the ruling a “critical victory” successful a connection released Friday evening.

“Consolidating hundreds of section TV stations nether 1 firm proprietor would mean higher prices and little value programming for consumers,” she wrote. She later continued, “We will support fighting our lawsuit to guarantee adjacent title among section TV stations that service communities crossed the country.”