IRVING, Texas—Nexstar is bringing its broadcast and digital operations under one roof, announcing that it is merging Nexstar Broadcasting Inc. and Nexstar Digital LLC into a single division, Nexstar Inc. The realignment will be effective as of Nov. 1.
By combining the two subsidiaries, Nexstar says that it is aligning its local content production with management teams that are experts in broadcasting and digital, maximizing Nexstar’s content, national reach and consumer digital use across multiple platforms. The move is also expected to provide seven-figure savings in 2021, Nexstar estimates.
Nexstar’s broadcasting, digital and network businesses will now be operating divisions of Nexstar Inc. Karen Brophy will lead the digital business unit as president, handling Nexstar’s 121 local websites, programmatic, data science, social media, group sales, partnerships and its efforts to streamline its ad tech stack. Brophy is replacing Gregory R. Raifman, who served as president of Nexstar Digital; he will leave Nexstar at the conclusion of his contract, March 31, 2021.
Timothy C. Busch is set to serve as president of Broadcasting, overseeing Nexstar’s 197 TV stations and related digital multicast signals. Sean Compton will be president, Networks, responsible for WGN America, Antenna TV and WGN Radio. Busch, Compton and Brophy will report to Thomas E. Carter, Nexstar Media Group president, COO and CFO.
“The operational realignment we are announcing today will accelerate Nexstar’s growth by leveraging our leading local content and positioning the company to become an even more nimble and competitive organization, thereby creating new value for shareholders,” said Carter. “Tim, Sean and Karen are proven, experienced members of Nexstar Nation and are ideally suited to lead our deep and capable operations, broadcast, content and digital teams. In addition to realizing operating expense efficiencies, by centralizing operations into a single primary operating entity, we will strengthen our focus on distributing the content consumers want most, delivered the way they prefer to consume it, which we believe will drive near- and long-term operating results improvements.
“Our decision to reorganize the business’ operating structure at this time reflects our view that there remains tremendous upside to be realized by maximizing the value of our assets, content and strong consumer engagement with our digital properties,” Carter added.
