
Why This Matters: Nexstar founder Perry Sook has won the Golden Mike Award for his role building the company into an industry leader.
Nexstar media group founder, chairman, president and CEO Perry Sook started his company in 1996 with a single station in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and a belief that the television station business, out of favor in the late '90s, was ready for a resurgence. Over the past 23 years, Sook has dedicated himself to proving that theory right and later this year, after its $6.4 billion purchase of Tribune Media is closed, Nexstar will be the largest station group in the country, with more than 200 stations in more than 100 markets and covering 39% of U.S. television households.
Sook has been a guiding force in the industry through Nexstar and his participation on many industry boards he is chairman of the CBS Affiliates Board, the Television Bureau of Advertising (TVB) board of directors and The Ohio University Foundation Board.
On March 6, he was awarded the Broadcasters Foundation of America's Golden Mike Award for his contributions to the industry and to philanthropy. The Broadcasters Foundation helps men and women in broadcasting who have lost their livelihood through a catastrophic event, debilitating disease or other unforeseen tragedy. The Golden Mike is the group's highest honor, and foundation chairman Dan Mason said in a statement that the growth of Nexstar under Sook has benefited the entire TV industry. As a member of our board, he has championed our mission of helping broadcasters in acute need and spread the word about the assistance we can provide, Mason said. He is admired among his colleagues, and it is a privilege to honor him.
Sook spoke recently with B&C. An edited transcript follows.
B&C: You started Nexstar in 1996 with one station, during a time when television stations weren't considered to be a particularly attractive asset. What was your thinking behind this?
Perry Sook: I believe, and still do today, in the essential mission of local broadcast television, which is to create local content to inform viewers and to help local businesses sell their wares. We exist as a local service business and I've always believed in that mission. Technology may, over time, change how we do it, but our essential mission is serving our local communities by facilitating business-to-consumer communication, and by providing local contextual, interesting, engaging, content, which is primarily local news. That mission hasn't changed and that's what attracted me to the business. Starting the company when local television was out of favor and building it for the last 23 years opportunistically has allowed us to create a company, when we close on Tribune, that will have almost 15,000 employees and almost $4 billion in revenue and will be the largest owner of commercial television stations in the United States.
B&C: Was the goal always to be a large station group, or did it just work out that way?
PS: The goal was never to be the biggest. Our goal was to try to be one of the best and one of the most valuable, create opportunities for our employees and create value for our shareholders. We continued to acquire opportunities that made sense for us, and really just woke up one day and realized that when we close on Tribune, we'll be the largest television broadcast group in the country. That was never the goal. I would say finding good acquisition opportunities, integrating them, performing, all were the goal, and where we are today and where we will be soon is the byproduct of that strategy.
B&C: The Golden Mike is a pretty prestigious honor. Past recipients include Graham Media Group president and CEO Emily Barr, former Hearst TV president and CEO David Barrett, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and NAB president and CEO Gordon Smith. How does it feel to be a part of that group?
PS: I am very humbled for my name to even be mentioned with many, if not all, of those who have received this award before. The thing that is special for me is that I have received a number of awards for achievement in our industry; this award has particular ties to philanthropy and helping those less fortunate, and that is something very important to myself and my family. The combination of those elements is what makes this award very special to me.
B&C: What do you see as being the most exciting thing happening in broadcasting right now?
PS: We're spending a lot of time working on the transition to ATSC 3.0. We think that is going to be the next value driver and will open up opportunities for those of us that operate in the local side of our industry. We think there is an opportunity to provide enhanced services to advertisers and consumers, as well as data transmission, working with autonomous cars. We are in point-to-multipoint wireless communications and we think that there are going to be opportunities to do things that we aren't even thinking of today with ATSC 3.0.
The other area that we're spending a lot of time on at the senior roles in our company is the TIP [TV Interface Practices] initiative, which is an attempt to make broadcast television less expensive to do business with from a process perspective. In other words, if you have one employee that can make three clicks and buy ads on YouTube or Facebook, but you have an entire department to place media, reconcile invoices across 40 or 50 stations, we need to get it to the point where we can be more profitable for the agencies to do business with us. We think those two elements taken together could really drive value.
B&C: What's the scariest trend?
PS: The audiences are more fragmented today than they were five years ago, and five years ago they were more fragmented than they were 20 years ago. That is just a fact of life. With so much video out there, ou
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
02/05/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
01/05/2026
January 5 2026, 18:30 (PST) NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to ...
02/04/2026
SBS Welcomes Back Cup Fever! For The Biggest FIFA World Cup Ever
2 April, 2026
Media releases
Santo Cilauro, Ed Kavalee and a host of special guests retur...
02/04/2026
Truth. Power. Perspective: NITV's Flagship Current Affairs Programs Return t...
02/04/2026
L3Harris has successfully powered the historic launch of the Artemis II mission, providing propulsion and avionics....
02/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/04/2026
Already deployed extensively by NBC Sports, FOR-A Corporation will demonstrate GoVertical! AiDi, the real-time 9:16 autocropping feature of viztrick AiDi, durin...
02/04/2026
Interra Systems, a provider of end-to-end quality assurance solutions for the digital media industry, announced that Elite Media Technologies has selected its B...
02/04/2026
Harmonic's Media Processing Solutions Maximize Bandwidth Efficiency for Terrestrial Broadcast Delivery
Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today announced that TDF, a...
02/04/2026
NBC Sports Deploys viztrick AiDi to Stream Live Events in 9:16 Mobile-First Formats with Auto Tracking, Development Signals Strategic Shift for FOR-A
Long reco...
02/04/2026
Evergent will showcase new innovations in subscriber lifecycle management and monetization at NAB Show 2026 (Las Vegas, April 18 22), including:
New advances i...
02/04/2026
Riedel Communications is proud to be part of Binghamton University, State University of New York, Athletics' milestone year, celebrating the university'...
02/04/2026
Encompass Digital Media and Techex have today announced new, fully managed, cloud-native Master Control services designed to meet the growing operational demand...
02/04/2026
Avid today announced it will showcase new innovations designed to help media companies win in the new media economy at NAB Show 2026 (April 18 22, Las Vegas Co...
02/04/2026
PlayBox Neo helps AIS PLAY kick-off premier football content direct to fans
PlayBox Neo has provided MIMO Tech with a brand-new major installation to extend it...
02/04/2026
Globo has transitioned its primary content distribution to Secure Reliable Transport over a fully IP-based managed backbone using Synamedia's Quortex PowerV...
02/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/04/2026
Student Spotlight: Al-Fadl Salem The Danish singer recently performed for the queen of Denmark.
April 1, 2026
By
Editorial Staff
Image by Junia Morrow
Wh...
02/04/2026
Taku Hirano's Career Is Defined by Identity Whether he's performing, composing, teaching, or developing instruments, the do-it-all percussionist sees ...
02/04/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils Official Trailer for The Trials of Winnie Mandela
Entertainment
02 April 2026
GlobalSouth Africa
Link copied to clipboard
...
02/04/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Announces Start of Production and New Cast for Second ...
02/04/2026
Back to All News
The Trailer for Ronaldinho: The One and Only Features Never-Be...
02/04/2026
Red Seat Ventures Launches Speakeasy, a New Hosting, Distribution and Monetizati...
02/04/2026
GoVertical! AiDi Powers Real-Time 9:16 Autocropping for Immediate Streaming to M...
02/04/2026
By Lance Maurer, CEO
Image generated by AI
Engineering is supposed to be fun....
02/04/2026
2FM Breakfast to extend on weekday mornings from 6am to 10am
Doireann Garrihy m...
02/04/2026
RT News & Current Affairs is pleased to announce the appointment of RT Radio 1 reporter, Barry Lenihan, as Political Correspondent.
Barry has reported across...
02/04/2026
No joke - GFN Thursday is skipping the tricks and heading straight into the games. April kicks off with ten new titles, bringing fresh adventures to GeForce NOW...
01/04/2026
As sports media organization continue to seek out new ways to streamline their p...
01/04/2026
The SVG GFX Forum hit New York City earlier this month for a day packed with sessions focused on the creative strategy and technology behind today's cutting...
01/04/2026
This year, Spotify celebrates the five-year anniversary of EQUAL, our global pro...
01/04/2026
Analogue-style tape splicing in the digital domain
In this era of digital recording and multiple layers of Undo, it seems that the fading art of tape splici...
01/04/2026
Latest release introduces new Orbita Engine
Zero G's latest release marks the start of a new series of libraries, as well as introducing an all-new engi...
01/04/2026
Until now, one format has largely been left behind
Warm Audio's extensive product range includes modern-day recreations of all manner of sought-after s...
01/04/2026
A piano with glass vessels for strings!
The Crow Hill Company's recently released Gong Piano offered a refreshing new take on piano libraries, harnessin...
01/04/2026
Remote Streaming Studio Condenser
Aim Audio have just revealed their latest creation, the ESSENCE RS Remote Streaming Studio Condenser, which becomes the wo...
01/04/2026
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) is pleased to announce that the ca...
01/04/2026
Bilbao, April 1st, 2026 - AgileTV, a leading provider of end-to-end TV technolog...
01/04/2026
Green Hippo is excited to announce the launch of its new Hippotizer Media Server training courses at Pixel Academy, a purpose built AV learning hub combining ha...
01/04/2026
TAG Video Systems, a global leader in IP-native broadcast monitoring, multiviewing, and quality control, today announced a collaboration with Oracle Cloud Infra...
01/04/2026
Professional Wireless Systems (PWS), a leading provider of wireless audio solutions and RF management, was on site at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, wher...
01/04/2026
AgileTV, a leading provider of end-to-end TV technology solutions, has deployed next , the new IPTV platform of the Austrian telco LIWEST, marking the first st...
01/04/2026
LTN, a leader in fully managed IP video transport, and Ateme, a global leader in video compression and delivery solutions, today announced a collaboration integ...
01/04/2026
Adobe Unveils Powerful New Innovations for Creative Pros in Adobe Illustrator
Deepa Subramaniam April 1, 2026
0 Comments
I'm excited to share that...
01/04/2026
Boland Communications Introduces QD4K315HDR10 QD-OLED Series Monitors for Live P...
01/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...