, the rights to many professional sports teams’ regional broadcasts could also potentially be on the table.
“To use a sports term, we are playing Moneyball,” he said. “Because we’ve just taken over this network, ... we’re just doing our first foray into sports. … But what I hope is we can grow into [becoming] more and more competitive for more and more programming, including sports franchises as time goes on.”Nexstar is also trying to make headway in cable news with its channel NewsNation.
After acquiring Chicago-based WGN America as part of its acquisition of Tribune Media in 2020, Nexstar developed NewsNation first as a segment on WGN America before renaming the channel entirely. Nexstar plans to build out NewsNation into a 24/5 channel by the end of next year, with the goal of it eventually becoming 24/7 like Fox or CNN.According to Sook, NewsNation didn’t retain any legacy audience from WGN America, forcing the company to build the channel’s audience from scratch.
“We know the street names. We know the local officials because we live and work in those communities,” Sook said. “We can be in Oklahoma City when the tornado comes through because we have a local station and local reporters there before anybody else can charter a jet and fly in from New York or Los Angeles or whatever to cover the aftermath.”, a Washington newspaper distributed for free around the Capitol and mailed directly to Congressional offices.
Nexstar's NewsNation cable news network features a lineup of well-known broadcasters : Elizabeth Vargas, Leland Vittert, Chris Cuomo, Dan Abrams and Ashleigh Banfield.