Nexstar accused of sabotaging TV channels owned by blacks – Variety

A black-owned television channel on Wednesday continued the Nexstar media group, accusing it of sabotaging its efforts to operate independently.

Marshall Broadcasting Group owns three Fox branches in Odessa, Texas; Shreveport, La .; and Davenport, Iowa. The company, which belongs to Pluria Marshall Jr., bought the resorts at Nexstar in 2014, with Nexstar seeking to divest in order to obtain FCC approval for a series of acquisitions.

According to the lawsuit, Nexstar wanted to sell to Marshall, knowing that the FCC would favorably consider a sale to a minority-owned company. Nexstar has gone so far as to secure the financing necessary to complete the transaction. The lawsuit alleges that since the agreement, Nexstar has sabotaged Marshall's efforts to manage the stations.

The lawsuit claims that Nexstar intends to torpedo the value of the stations, then reacquire them, hoping that "in the current political climate, Nexstar will face much less regulatory repression than in the end of 2014 ".

Nexstar has issued a statement denying the allegations: "The allegations made by MBG in its lawsuit against the company are spurious and unfounded. The company intends to vigorously defend it in court. "

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Nexstar is about to become the country's largest television station owner, if it can get regulatory approval for the acquisition of Tribune Media. Nexstar announced the $ 4.1 billion deal in December and hopes to close it by the end of 2019.

Marshall is the editor of Wave Community Newspapers, a group of African-American newspapers in Los Angeles. According to the complaint, he allegedly attempted to purchase television channels in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but could not have obtained funding. He again tried to buy stations at Media General in 2008, but institutional lenders were unwilling to finance a transaction due to "insufficient independent badets".

Nexstar helped Marshall overcome this hurdle in 2014 by agreeing to extend the five-year guarantee to lenders, including Bank of America, to help secure the three stations. Marshall alleges, however, that the terms of the agreement were very unfavorable to Nexstar.

Marshall claims that Nexstar has increased it by $ 16 million for the stations and that it has withheld millions of dollars in cable company retransmission fees. The lawsuit claims that Nexstar has also threatened to withdraw its financial guarantee, which would force Marshall to default.

"It became clear that the diversity lens within the FCC was our only value for Nexstar," Marshall said in a statement.

"In the end, it's a bait and a change," Marshall said Variety in an interview. "The spirit of the agreement was that we were working together to develop Marshall Broadcasting. But I do not think Nexstar ever really thought of letting us grow. … This could happen to anyone belonging to a minority seeking to badociate with a larger company in order to grow. "

According to Marshall, only 12 of the 1,400 full-power commercial television stations in the United States belong to blacks.

The complaint was filed in the New York Supreme Court. Marshall Broadcasting is represented by David Boies of Boies Schiller Flexner LLP.