Former Newsmax Host Sean Spicer Backs Nexstar-TEGNA Deal Opposed by Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy

Nexstar: Nexstar Media Group can add a new varsity conservative name to the list opposing Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy’s effort to block Nexstar’s pending deal to acquire fellow TV station owner TEGNA. On Friday, former Trump 45 White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer called on the FCC under Chairman Brendan Carr to scrap the agency’s 39% TV household ownership cap that currently prevents Nexstar CEO Perry Sook from closing on his consolidation play. “By abolishing the FCC’s ownership cap, the Trump administration can allow the opportunity for more right-leaning affiliate owners to become more influential. By buying more stations, they can give conservatives a powerful voice at the broadcast TV table,” Spicer said in an Oct. 31 column in the Daily Caller. “Yet, puzzlingly, some people who should get this point are actually fighting it. Among them is the CEO of Newsmax, a supposed conservative outlet, who warns that lifting the cap ‘would harm local broadcasting TV.’” Spicer was host of the nightly Newsmax show Spicer & Co. from 2020 to 2023. Last Wednesday, former House GOP lawmakers Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.), Fred Upton (Mich.), and Greg Walden (Ore.) in an article in The Hill, a Nexstar-owned news outlet, called on the FCC to abolish the 39% cap. (More after paywall.)