CHANTILLY, Va.—BIA Advisory Services has released its annual ranking of the top 30 TV station groups by revenue, with Nexstar Broadcasting ranked as the largest with nearly $4 billion in total revenue.
Standard General came in #2, with $2.7 billion in revenue, followed by Gray ($2.6 billion), Sinclair ($2.5 billion), and Fox at #5 with $2.5 billion.
The rankings also highlighted the importance of retransmission consent agreements with retransmission payments exceeding advertising revenue for Nexstar, Standard General and Sinclair.
In a blog post announcing the rankings, Suzanne Ackley noted that “[t]he biggest change is that Standard General, thanks to its pending acquisition of Tegna, now occupies the 2nd spot. But before you cry foul and tell me that 1) the Standard General/Tegna deal wasn’t announced until 2022, and 2) the deal hasn’t even closed yet… it wouldn’t make any difference in the rankings. Looking at the list without the Standard General/Tegna acquisition, BIA’s new head of forecasting, Nicole Ovadia remarked that `Tegna would have surpassed Gray, moving from third to second this year on our list even without the sale to Standard General.’
The blog also noted that the change in ranking for Standard General is the first change in the top 10 in a few years, with the top 10 list remaining the same in 2021 and 2020.
The blog also explained that Nexstar maintains duopoly partnerships (ie – Joint Services Agreements and/or Shared Services Agreements) with Mission Broadcasting-owned TV stations and that BIA combined Nexstar and Mission’s revenues for this list. The same holds true for Sinclair, which has similar agreements with TV stations owned by Stephen Mumblow and Cunningham Broadcasting.
