Consolidation Wave Reshapes San Diego's Local Television Market

Local TV ownership consolidates with potential changes to broadcast regulations expected | KPBS Public Media

Industry Faces Structural Decline

BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front)

San Diego's television broadcasting landscape faces twin crises of consolidation and structural revenue collapse as national media companies pursue mergers amid declining viewership and anticipated regulatory relaxation under the Trump administration. While Nexstar Media Group's pending acquisition of Tegna would give it control of three San Diego stations and EW Scripps rejected Sinclair Broadcasting's hostile takeover, the underlying industry economics reveal a death spiral: broadcasters are raising retransmission fees to compensate for lost advertising revenue, which accelerates cord-cutting, which further erodes both revenue streams. With pay-TV penetration falling to 34.4% of U.S. households and traditional TV losing $12 billion in revenue in 2024 alone, the question is not whether San Diego's broadcasting model survives, but what emerges from its collapse.

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The Death Spiral: How Retransmission Fees Are Accelerating Industry Decline

The consolidation activity in San Diego exists within a broader industry crisis characterized by mutually reinforcing pressures: cord-cutting, rising retransmission fees, declining advertising revenue, and audience fragmentation. These forces have created what industry analysts call a "death spiral" where each attempt to shore up revenue accelerates the underlying decline.

Explosive Growth in Retransmission Fees

Retransmission fees—payments cable and satellite operators make to broadcast stations for the right to carry their signals—have exploded from near-zero in 2005 to over $15 billion annually by 2025. According to Golden West Telecommunications, individual customer fees skyrocketed from approximately $2.50 per month in 2012 to over $30 per month in 2024, a twelve-fold increase in just twelve years.

S&P Global Market Intelligence projects the average monthly retransmission rate per subscriber for Big Four network affiliates (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox) will reach $4.83 in 2025, up 7% from $4.52 in 2024. Gross retransmission and virtual subscription revenue is expected to reach $15.52 billion in 2025, with modest growth to $17.50 billion by 2030 driven entirely by rate increases rather than subscriber growth.

"Broadcasters charge cable and satellite providers and their customers to 'retransmit' those same channels, meaning you are essentially paying for 'free' TV," notes Premier Communications in its explanation to customers. This paradox—paying for over-the-air content available free with an antenna—has become increasingly difficult to justify as costs soar.

Cord-Cutting Accelerates

These fee increases directly drive cord-cutting, with 86.7% of former cable subscribers citing high costs as their primary reason for canceling service. The statistics paint a grim picture:

• U.S. cable TV subscribers declined to 68.7 million in 2024, down 4.9% from 72.2 million in 2023
• Pay-TV penetration dropped from over 80% in 2011 to just 34.4% by end of 2024
• Pay-TV households fell from approximately 86 million in 2014 to 56 million by 2025—a 35% collapse
• An estimated 77.2 million households will have cut the cord by end of 2025, representing 72% of U.S. homes
• Nielsen data shows streaming now accounts for 44.3% of total TV viewership versus just 24.5% for cable

The pace is accelerating. Pay-TV providers lost 5.04 million net subscribers in 2023, up from 4.6 million in 2022. In the first three quarters of 2024, providers lost 12% of their subscribers compared to the same period in 2023.

Revenue Collapse Across Both Models

The collision between rising retransmission fees and accelerating cord-cutting has created catastrophic revenue losses:

• Traditional TV lost $12 billion in subscription and advertising revenue in 2024 alone
• Pay-TV revenue declined from $100.09 billion in 2017 to $84.29 billion in 2024—a 16% drop
• Caretta Research predicts global broadcast and pay-TV will lose $42 billion between 2024 and 2029
• S&P Global projects U.S. broadcast station advertising revenue will decline 9.3% to $32.83 billion in 2025
• Local television spot advertising is projected to decline 4%, with national spot down 4.3%

nScreenMedia analysis shows that 57% of TV revenue remains locked in traditional cable, satellite, and telco TV subscriptions and advertising, but this is rapidly shifting to streaming platforms and connected TV.

The Network Tax

Complicating broadcasters' situation, the major networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox) are demanding higher "reverse compensation"—the share of retransmission fees that networks take from their local affiliates. This effectively taxes the shrinking subscriber base even harder.

"Nexstar and other station groups are already reporting 'network fee pressures' as networks like ABC, NBC and Fox demand higher reverse compensation, essentially taxing the remaining subscriber base harder," notes TV industry analysis site TVREV. On a net basis after deducting reverse retransmission payments to networks, station net retransmission revenue will decline 1% from $7.35 billion in 2024 to $7.27 billion in 2025.

Major station groups like Gray Television and Nexstar now derive 50-54% of their revenue from retransmission fees—a dependency that inverts the traditional advertising-based business model. Gray Media saw retransmission revenue drop 6% year-over-year in Q3 2025 while carrying $5.6 billion in long-term debt. When retransmission revenue shrinks, these highly leveraged companies face existential financial pressure.

Sports Rights Inflation

Simultaneously, the cost of sports rights—critical for maintaining audience and justifying retransmission fees—has surged dramatically. S&P Global estimates that by 2028, pay-TV providers will pay nearly $16.6 billion for sports rights, even as their subscriber base continues eroding.

PwC analysis notes that "fixed costs for rights are overwhelming a shrinking subscriber base—broadcast retransmission costs are ten times what they were ten years ago." Large tech platforms like Apple, Amazon, and YouTube are aggressively bidding for sports rights, driving prices beyond what traditional broadcasters can sustain on declining revenue.

Major Consolidation Moves Target San Diego Market

Against this backdrop of industry crisis, the San Diego television market has become a focal point for consolidation efforts.

Nexstar's Expansion to Three Stations

Nexstar Media Group, already operating KUSI (independent) and KSWB Fox 5 in San Diego, stands to acquire CBS affiliate KFMB-TV (Channel 8) through its proposed $3 billion acquisition of Tegna Inc. The deal would concentrate significant market share under single ownership in the nation's eighth-largest media market with approximately 1.1 million households.

The transaction potentially violates the FCC's duopoly rule, which generally limits ownership to two stations per market, and may approach the national audience reach cap of 39% of U.S. television households. However, Nexstar has historically navigated such restrictions through shared service agreements and divestitures to affiliated entities.

Critically, anticipated regulatory changes under the incoming Trump administration may eliminate these barriers entirely before the transaction closes, fundamentally altering the competitive landscape.

Scripps Rebuffs Sinclair's Hostile Bid

EW Scripps Company, owner of ABC affiliate KGTV (10News), rejected an unsolicited $2.3 billion takeover offer from Sinclair Broadcast Group in December 2024. Sinclair's proposal valued Scripps at approximately $7 per share, representing a modest premium over trading prices.

Scripps adopted a shareholder rights plan—a "poison pill"—designed to dilute potential acquirers' stakes if they exceed ownership thresholds without board approval. In a December 20, 2024 statement, Scripps said it remains "open to evaluating opportunities to enhance shareholder value" while defending against what it characterized as an inadequate offer.

Sinclair, known for its conservative editorial stance and mandatory "must-run" commentary segments across its 185 stations nationwide, has faced previous regulatory challenges. The FCC blocked its 2018 attempt to acquire Tribune Media's 42 stations, citing concerns about market concentration and lack of candor in license applications.

Industry observers interpret Scripps' statement as signaling openness to a higher bid, either from Sinclair or another suitor, reflecting the company's need to demonstrate growth prospects to shareholders amid challenging industry conditions.

The Economics Driving Desperate Consolidation

The push for consolidation reflects broadcasters' attempts to achieve scale economies as their business model collapses. However, the strategy contains inherent contradictions.

Shrinking Revenue, Consolidating Ownership

According to BIA Advisory Services, local television advertising revenue declined from $22.4 billion in 2016 to approximately $18.6 billion in 2023, with further erosion expected. BIA predicts retransmission fee growth will flatten between 2024 and 2028 as cord-cutting overwhelms per-subscriber rate increases.

"They're doing this because the audience is diminishing, and they want a larger piece of a smaller pie so that they can keep their revenue up," said Lee Swanson, a veteran San Diego television journalist, in an interview with KPBS. "But they're also cutting jobs, mostly in newsrooms."

The consolidation-cost cutting cycle has become self-reinforcing. Large broadcast groups now control approximately 37% of the nation's 1,760 full-power television stations, up from 25% a decade ago. Private equity firm Apollo's acquisition of Cox Media Group led to approximately 20% staffing reductions across its portfolio. Similar cuts have followed virtually every major acquisition.

Demographic Collapse

Beyond raw subscriber losses, the remaining cable audience is aging rapidly and becoming less valuable to advertisers. Nielsen data shows traditional television news viewership among adults 25-54—the key advertising demographic—has declined approximately 30% since 2019 across local markets.

The majority of cable TV subscribers (63%) are aged 68 years or older. Only 46% of those aged 18-37 subscribe to cable TV, preferring streaming services. Younger audiences increasingly source news from YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and influencers rather than broadcast television.

This demographic collapse makes the remaining advertising inventory less valuable even as total viewership declines, compounding revenue pressures.

Regulatory Landscape Poised for Dramatic Change

The incoming Trump administration's FCC appointments signal the most significant relaxation of media ownership restrictions in decades, potentially eliminating barriers that have constrained consolidation since the 1970s.

Current Regulatory Framework

The FCC's local television ownership rules currently prohibit a single entity from owning more than two television stations in the same market (the "duopoly rule"), with additional restrictions requiring that eight independently owned stations remain post-merger. The national ownership cap prevents any broadcaster from reaching more than 39% of U.S. television households, though a UHF discount effectively doubles this ceiling for stations on UHF frequencies.

The FCC also enforces the "top-four rule" prohibiting common ownership of two of the four highest-rated stations in a market, intended to prevent excessive concentration of advertising inventory.

These rules date to an era when three broadcast networks dominated national news and local stations served as primary information sources. The FCC last comprehensively reviewed ownership limits in 2017 under the first Trump administration, proposing revisions that were challenged and delayed by public interest groups.

Expected Policy Shifts

President Trump's FCC chair nominee, Brendan Carr, currently the senior Republican commissioner, has advocated for eliminating or substantially revising ownership caps. In a 2019 statement, Carr argued that "the media marketplace has been transformed" by internet platforms and that legacy broadcast regulations "no longer serve their intended purpose."

"The FCC is saying, it's a shrinking market so why are we holding on to laws and regulations that were big and important when there were only three or four big broadcast outlets," explained Dean Nelson, journalism director at Point Loma Nazarene University, in the KPBS interview.

Media policy analysts anticipate the FCC could move quickly to:

• Eliminate or substantially revise the duopoly rule
• Increase the national ownership cap to 50% or higher
• Relax or eliminate the top-four ownership restriction
• Streamline shared service agreement approvals

Such changes would remove significant barriers to transactions like Nexstar's Tegna acquisition and could reignite consolidation attempts by Sinclair and other large broadcasters. The International Center for Law and Economics has proposed eliminating the retransmission consent system entirely, treating broadcasters like any other content supplier under copyright and contract law—a reform that could fundamentally restructure the industry's economics.

Implications for Local Journalism and News Diversity

Consolidation raises profound concerns about news diversity, resource allocation, and editorial independence, particularly as financial pressures intensify.

Newsroom Cuts and Quality Degradation

Research from the University of North Carolina's Hussman School of Journalism found that television station acquisitions by large groups correlate with reduced local news staffing, fewer investigative reports, and increased nationally syndicated content.

"The first place they look to cut when they buy a station is in the newsroom," Swanson noted. "There are layoffs and firings, and they're trying to do the same amount of news with fewer people, and the quality suffers."

This creates a vicious cycle: reduced quality drives viewers to alternative sources, which reduces advertising revenue, which drives further cuts. The demographic aging of the cable audience makes this dynamic irreversible regardless of content quality.

Editorial Consolidation and Ideological Mandates

Academic studies have documented changes in editorial practices following acquisitions by ideologically oriented station groups. A 2019 American Political Science Review study found that Sinclair-owned stations devoted less coverage to local political races and more to national stories with conservative framing after acquisition.

"In the case of Nexstar or Sinclair, they have a particular bent, and they're trying to express that, or they are expressing that through their stations," Swanson observed. "There may be two sides to every story, but there's only one set of facts. And the fact is we have to get the facts out. And if they want to skew those facts, then viewers aren't getting a fair and objective presentation of the issue."

Nexstar has faced similar scrutiny for its NewsNation cable network and local station editorial directives. Former employees have reported pressure to emphasize crime coverage and reduce investigative journalism resources, though the company disputes characterizations that it imposes ideological mandates.

The Local News Crisis

The combination of consolidation, cost-cutting, and declining viewership has created what researchers call "news deserts"—communities without adequate local journalism coverage. As stations concentrate ownership and share resources across markets, hyper-local coverage diminishes even as generic national content proliferates.

For San Diego, the prospect of Nexstar controlling three stations raises questions about whether the market will maintain adequate diversity of local news perspectives and investigative capacity. The economic incentives point toward shared newsroom resources, reduced field reporting, and increased reliance on press releases and wire services.

Broader National Consolidation Context

The San Diego developments mirror accelerating consolidation nationally as companies seek survival through scale.

Recent and pending major transactions include:

Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery: Reports emerged in late 2024 of Paramount Global exploring a potential merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, which would combine CBS broadcast stations with CNN and other cable properties in an entity valued at over $40 billion. Such a merger would represent one of the largest media consolidations in history.

Gray Television Divestitures: Gray announced plans to sell 16 stations in eight markets to reduce its crushing $5.6 billion debt load, potentially creating acquisition opportunities for other groups while highlighting the financial distress even among major players.

Apollo Global Management-Cox Media: Private equity firm Apollo acquired Cox Media Group's television and radio stations in 2019 and has pursued additional acquisitions while implementing cost-cutting measures that reduced newsroom staffing by approximately 20% across its portfolio.

The common thread across all transactions: attempts to achieve scale economies and market power to extract higher retransmission fees and negotiate better terms with networks, even as the underlying business model deteriorates.

The Cable Operator Perspective: Caught in the Middle

Cable operators face equally severe pressures from both directions: broadcasters demanding higher retransmission fees while subscribers flee to streaming alternatives.

Unsustainable Fee Trajectory

Cable operators argue that retransmission fees have become unsustainable. As one rural cable provider explained: "Broadcasters charge cable and satellite providers and their customers to 'retransmit' those same channels, meaning you are essentially paying for 'free' TV."

The operators face a Catch-22: They can't drop local broadcast stations—the most-watched channels for many subscribers—without triggering mass cancellations. But passing through escalating retransmission fees to subscribers accelerates cord-cutting. The leverage lies entirely with broadcasters, who can threaten station blackouts if operators refuse fee increases.

Six of nine major cable providers increased broadcast TV fees by an average of 12.8% in 2024, adding approximately $21.48 to monthly bills. Some areas now see broadcast retransmission fees exceeding $48 per month, transforming what was once called "lifeline cable" into an expensive service.

Declining Bargaining Power

As cable subscriber bases shrink, operators lose negotiating leverage. Large broadcast groups like Nexstar can threaten coordinated blackouts across dozens of stations in multiple markets, creating political pressure that typically forces operators to accept fee increases.

The retransmission consent framework established in the 1992 Cable Act gave broadcasters the choice between mandatory carriage at no cost or negotiated fees. In practice, market power has shifted so dramatically toward broadcasters that "negotiation" often means capitulation to escalating demands.

The Streaming Escape Valve

Virtual MVPDs (multichannel video programming distributors) like YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV, and others face the same retransmission fee pressures as traditional cable. However, their lower overhead and direct-to-consumer model allows more flexible pricing. YouTube TV, projected to reach 12.4 million subscribers by end of 2026, is poised to become America's largest pay-TV provider despite its relatively recent entry to the market.

The irony: streaming services recreate the cable bundle but with internet delivery, often at lower prices due to reduced infrastructure costs. They still pay retransmission fees but can adjust pricing more dynamically than traditional cable's annual contract cycles.

San Diego Market Specifics

San Diego represents an attractive but challenging market for consolidation due to its size, demographics, and military-influenced economic base.

Market Structure

The San Diego DMA (Designated Market Area) ranks eighth nationally with approximately 1.1 million television households. The market supports six full-power commercial stations, two public television stations, and numerous low-power and translator facilities.

Current ownership structure includes:

• KGTV (ABC 10): EW Scripps Company
• KFMB-TV (CBS 8): Tegna Inc. (pending Nexstar acquisition)
• KNSD (NBC 7): NBCUniversal (Comcast)
• KSWB (Fox 5): Nexstar Media Group
• KUSI: Nexstar Media Group (independent)
• XETV-TDT (Univision affiliate): Grupo Televisa (licensed in Tijuana, Mexico)

If Nexstar's Tegna acquisition completes, the company would control three of the top six English-language stations, representing approximately 40-45% of market viewership based on typical ratings patterns. This concentration would trigger FCC review even under current rules, likely requiring divestiture of one station or shared service arrangements.

However, anticipated regulatory changes could eliminate this requirement entirely, allowing unprecedented local market concentration.

Economic and Demographic Factors

San Diego's stable economy anchored by military installations, biotechnology, tourism, and higher education provides some insulation from economic downturns. However, the market faces the same cord-cutting trends as the nation, with particularly pronounced declines among younger demographics.

The presence of significant military populations creates unique challenges and opportunities. Military households move frequently, making long-term cable subscriptions less attractive, while base housing often includes basic cable as part of rental agreements—a declining but still significant subscriber base.

The cross-border dynamic with Tijuana creates additional complexity, with significant Spanish-language viewership flowing between markets and regulatory jurisdictions.

Financial and Competitive Dynamics

Large broadcast groups argue that consolidation enables operational efficiencies, shared resources, and investment in technology infrastructure. The reality is more complex.

Economies of Scale vs. Financial Engineering

Nexstar reported $1.2 billion in free cash flow in 2023, which executives attributed partially to economies of scale from its 200-station portfolio. However, critics note that much of this "efficiency" comes from newsroom consolidation, shared services, and reduced local content production—exactly the outcomes that concern journalism advocates.

Gray Television's $5.6 billion debt burden illustrates the risks of leverage-driven consolidation. The company's retransmission revenue declined 6% in Q3 2025, creating severe cash flow pressure given its fixed debt obligations. Similar financial engineering has left many broadcast groups vulnerable to revenue shocks.

Retransmission Fee Leverage

Consolidation's primary financial benefit is increased leverage in retransmission negotiations. Larger station groups can threaten coordinated blackouts across multiple markets, creating political pressure that typically forces cable operators to accept higher fees.

However, this strategy has limits. As cord-cutting accelerates, the base of subscribers over which to spread retransmission fees shrinks, requiring ever-higher per-subscriber rates that drive more cord-cutting. The strategy works in the short term but accelerates long-term decline.

The Streaming Transition

Major broadcasters are attempting to pivot to streaming through network-affiliated services (Peacock, Paramount+, Disney+) and local station streaming apps. However, these efforts face enormous competition from established streamers like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+, which have massive content libraries and subscriber bases.

Local stations' digital businesses are seeing double-digit growth in many cases, but from tiny bases. As one executive noted, "Peacock has exploded, replacing a huge amount of any linear loss that the group has experienced," yet streaming revenue remains a small fraction of traditional broadcast revenue.

The fundamental challenge: broadcast stations' competitive advantage historically rested on free over-the-air distribution and mandatory cable carriage. In a streaming world, they're generic content providers competing against vastly better-resourced rivals.

Outlook and Uncertainties

The trajectory is clear even if the timeline remains uncertain: traditional broadcast television as currently constituted is not economically sustainable.

Near-Term (2025-2027)

• Continued acceleration of cord-cutting, with pay-TV penetration falling below 30% of households
• Completion of major consolidation transactions as FCC ownership rules are relaxed or eliminated
• Further newsroom reductions and local content cuts as revenue pressures intensify
• Increasing retransmission fees attempting to offset subscriber losses, driving additional cord-cutting
• More stations acquiring local sports rights as regional sports networks collapse

Medium-Term (2027-2030)

• Pay-TV penetration potentially falling below 25% of households
• Broadcast advertising revenue continuing structural decline
• Retransmission revenue peaking and beginning sustained decline
• Major broadcast groups facing severe financial distress, potential bankruptcies
• Emergence of hybrid models combining broadcast, streaming, and local sports rights

Long-Term (Beyond 2030)

Industry analysts offer varying visions, but common themes emerge:

PwC's analysis suggests broadcast television becomes a "legacy product" with "operations to support the linear business significantly downsized, with no new investments made. Linear plans will still be available to subscribers, but will not be actively promoted."

S&P Global projects traditional TV household penetration will continue declining while broadband penetration increases, "signaling an urgent need for broadcasters to accelerate their streaming strategies."

The most likely outcome: broadcast television survives as a diminished service providing local news and emergency information to aging and economically disadvantaged populations unable or unwilling to adopt streaming. Premium content, younger audiences, and advertising dollars continue migrating to streaming platforms and connected TV.

San Diego's Television Future

For San Diego viewers, the implications of these converging trends are profound:

Expected Changes

• Reduction in locally originated news programming, particularly investigative reporting and feature content
• Increased nationally syndicated content and shared news operations across commonly owned stations
• Potential consolidation of news departments if regulatory barriers to common ownership are eliminated
• Greater emphasis on digital streaming apps and social media content, though funded by declining resources
• Possible loss of one or more local stations as weak signals are sold or consolidated

Quality and Diversity Concerns

Whether consolidation enhances efficiency or diminishes journalism quality depends on acquiring companies' priorities. Historical evidence suggests quality suffers: research consistently shows acquisitions by large groups correlate with reduced local news staffing and increased syndicated content.

The question is whether market forces can support multiple high-quality local news operations when the economic foundation—advertising revenue and cable carriage fees—continues eroding. The trajectory suggests not, particularly in mid-sized markets like San Diego.

The Public Service Obligation

Broadcast licenses are granted on the premise that licensees serve "the public interest, convenience, and necessity." As economic pressures mount and ownership concentrates, maintaining this public service commitment becomes increasingly difficult.

Local journalism provides critical oversight of municipal government, coverage of community issues, and emergency information that cannot be easily replaced by national streaming services or social media. Yet the business model supporting this journalism is collapsing.

Conclusion: Toward an Uncertain Future

The consolidation wave in San Diego's television market is not an isolated phenomenon but rather a symptom of fundamental structural change in how Americans consume video content. The shift from broadcast and cable to streaming is not a trend but a permanent transformation.

The retransmission fee death spiral—rising fees driving cord-cutting, which drives higher fees, which drives more cord-cutting—has no obvious resolution within the current business model. Broadcasters' attempts to achieve scale through consolidation may extend survival but cannot reverse underlying trends.

For San Diego, as for the nation, the question is not whether the current model of local television broadcasting survives in its present form—it will not—but rather what emerges to serve the essential public functions of local journalism, emergency information, and community connection.

The most troubling aspect: the industry's attempts to extract maximum short-term value through rising retransmission fees and cost-cutting consolidation are accelerating the collapse they're designed to prevent. Each fee increase drives more cord-cutting. Each newsroom cut reduces quality and viewership. Each consolidation reduces diversity without solving the underlying economic crisis.

San Diego's television landscape in 2030 will likely feature fewer stations, less local journalism, more concentrated ownership, and diminished service to the public interest—not because of malicious intent but because the 20th-century broadcast model cannot survive in a 21st-century streaming world. Whether what replaces it adequately serves democratic functions of journalism and community information remains disturbingly uncertain.

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Verified Sources and Formal Citations

Primary Sources - San Diego Market

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    https://www.spglobal.com/market-intelligence/en/news-insights/research/broadcast-outlook-2024-challenges-opportunities-facing-us-tv-radio-stations

30. The Wrap - AMC Networks Reports 10% Revenue Decline
    "AMC Networks Reports 10% Revenue Decline in 2024 Due to Decreases in Linear TV and Content Licensing." The Wrap, 14 February 2025.
    https://www.thewrap.com/amc-networks-earnings-q4-2024/

Research and Academic Sources

31. American Political Science Review - Sinclair Broadcast Group Study
    Martin, Gregory J., and Josh McCrain. "Local News and National Politics." American Political Science Review 113, no. 2 (2019): 372-384.
    https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055418000965

32. University of North Carolina Hussman School of Journalism - News Deserts Study
    Abernathy, Penelope Muse. "The State of Local News: The 2022 Report." UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media, 2022.
    https://www.usnewsdeserts.com

Corporate and Financial Sources

33. EW Scripps Company - Shareholder Rights Plan Announcement
    The E.W. Scripps Company. "Scripps Adopts Shareholder Rights Plan." Press Release, 20 December 2024.
    https://investors.scripps.com

34. Nexstar Media Group - Annual Report and SEC Filings
    Nexstar Media Group, Inc. "Annual Report on Form 10-K for Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2023." U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
    https://www.sec.gov/edgar

Market Data and Ratings

35. Nielsen - Local Television Ratings Data
    Nielsen Media Research. "Local Television Market Rankings, 2024-2025." Nielsen.com.
    https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/solutions/audience-measurement/

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Methodology Note: This analysis synthesizes information from the provided KPBS article with comprehensive industry research, regulatory documentation, financial reports, and cord-cutting statistics. The article presents a complete picture of how local market consolidation in San Diego relates to broader structural changes in the television broadcasting and cable industries. All projections and trend analyses are based on published research from established industry sources including S&P Global Market Intelligence, BIA Advisory Services, Nielsen, and other authoritative organizations tracking media industry dynamics.