This year’s Top 30 looks different than expected.
Upon approval of its $8.6 billion takeover of the Tegna group, Soo Kim’s Standard General was to be ensconced in the top echelon of TVNewsCheck’s annual ranking of station groups.
But that approval never came. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel effectively killed the deal by drawing out the approval process until Standard General’s financial backing disappeared.
So, this year’s Top 30 (by revenue) reverts close to what it was prior to all the Standard General fuss.
Nexstar remains at the top with total revenue of $5.2 billion with Gray in the second spot with $3.5 billion and Tegna coming in third at $3.2 billion, just ahead of Sinclair .
When this chart was first published on June 28, it was based solely on revenue estimates from BIA Advisory Services. It is being reposted today after BIA and TVNewsCheck revised figures to reflect actual revenue taken from the annual reports of the six publicly traded companies on the chart that break out their TV broadcasting financials: Nexstar, Gray, Tegna, Sinclair, Scripps and Entravision.
The principal effect of the new figures is that Gray moves up from No. 4 to No. 2. Scripps, with $1.5 billion in revenue, drops from No.9 to No. 10. Hearst is the new No. 9.
BIA, a Chantilly, Va.-based research and investment firm, provides the coverage percentage (of total TV homes) as well the revenue figures upon which the ranking is based (comprising both advertising and retrans money). The revenue