The Year of Consolidating Madly

Longtime readers of B&C will notice a few things have changed in our annual report ranking the largest television station groups based on coverage of the U.S.

The changes reflect the evolution of the TV station market and the information that is important to know amid the busy pace of buying, selling and merging that continued last year and into this one.

Some of the formerly smaller or mid-sized groups are now some of the biggest (read: Nexstar) or no longer exist (read: Media General, on its way to being part of Nexstar). By next year, following the spectrum auctions, the list will likely look yet again dramatically different.

This year we focused on who the players are and where the TV station behemoths of today have their home offices. We based our rankings on BIA/Kelsey’s Media Access Pro data ranking full-power stations licensed and owned by groups.

TOP 20 STATION GROUPS BASED ON COVERAGE OF THE U.S.