Senior Corporate Execs Depart Tegna As Legal Fight Over Nexstar Merger Continues

Most of the senior corporate management team at local TV giant Tegna has left the company as the legal battle over its merger with rival Nexstar continues.

One of the leadership moves – Fox stations vet Patrick Paolini’s start on Monday as CEO, succeeding Mike Steib – was reported earlier this week by Deadline. Other execs leaving, either in recent days or by early June, include CFO Julie Heskett; Chief Strategy Officer Ed Busby and Chief Experience Officer Dhanusha Sivajee, according to a person familiar with the departures.

Paolini is understood to be planning to replace certain key members of the top team, especially in certain highly specific areas of specialty. At the station level, Tegna is continuing to operate as normal.

Nexstar announced the closing of its $6.2 billion acquisition of Tegna last March, just minutes after the FCC blessed the deal. DirecTV and a group of state attorneys general filed a lawsuit, characterizing the merger as monopolistic given it creates a local TV giant reaching 80% of U.S. households (more than double the current federal limit for a single owner). A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction freezing the merger integration, meaning Tegna is a subsidiary of Nexstar but the two companies cannot integrate operations.

After taking the case to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Nexstar then requested an accelerated trial process, with oral arguments starting in August. CEO Perry Sook has framed the case in stark terms, calling the combination a way to shore up the troubled local broadcasting business. The company’s brief argued that the lower-court ruling “risks profound harms” to Tegna, which would be compounded if the transaction is allowed to be unwound.

In many cases, for contractual reasons a number of Tegna corporate execs opted to leave and benefit from financial incentives tied to the merger, giving notice soon after the March closing announcement.

In a statement provided to Deadline about the exits of senior execs, Nexstar said it was “grateful” for those departing, saying they “have chosen to resign from their roles, for their dedication and service to the company, its local television stations, and the communities they serve. Their contributions helped strengthen local journalism at a critical moment for our industry, as broadcasters face a dramatically changed media landscape dominated by trillion-dollar streaming platforms and Big Tech. The Nexstar-Tegna merger is about building on that work – ensuring local stations have the scale, investment, and resources needed to preserve trusted local journalism and successfully compete in the future.”