Nexstar Media Group is a publicly traded American telecommunications company headquartered in Irving, Texas. The company's portfolio consists of 171 television stations across the U.S., most of whom are affiliates with the four "m...
See More ajor" U.S. television networks located in small to medium-sized markets. It also operates all of the stations owned by an affiliated company, Mission Broadcasting, under local marketing agreements.History1996–2010: FormationNexstar Media Group was founded as the Nexstar Broadcasting Group on June 17, 1996. The first television station bought by Nexstar was WYOU in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Nexstar bought WYOU from Diversified Communications. The sale was completed on September 28 of that year. Nexstar promptly fired two beloved anchors and laid-off several long-term staff-members. Nexstar founder Perry Sook said that WYOU would be Nexstar's flagship station, keeping an office off the newsroom for years. In 1998, Nexstar purchased WBRE-TV in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Because this was in the same market as WYOU, WYOU was 'sold' to Mission Broadcasting. This began the first ever 'shared-services' agreement between stations. WYOU's sales staff was kept in Scranton while the production and news operations were moved to WBRE's offices in Wilkes-Barre. WYOU's staff who were not laid-off were fired by Nexstar, hired by Mission and eventually re-hired by Nexstar. Mission Broadcasting then paid Nexstar to operate and control the production and news gathering operations while Mission kept the sales and management team.