As of Friday at 2:30 p.m. ET, Nexstar Media Group‘s (NASDAQ: NXST) stock price had gained 15.2% this week, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. The stock had been up as much as 19.1% during the week. Nexstar was trading at around $154 per share on Friday afternoon, down about 11% year to date.
It was not a particularly good week for the markets overall, as the S&P 500 was off 0.1%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.2%, and the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.5% (all as of Friday at 2:30 p.m. ET).
Nexstar Media is the largest owner of local television stations in the country, with some 200 stations in its portfolio in 116 markets, serving about 68% of U.S. households.
Things have been swirling this week in the broadcast TV space, and Nexstar is right in the middle of it all. On Monday, Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) settled its dispute with Spectrum cable, owned by Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHTR). The cable company scored a big win, as in return for the increased fees Disney was charging it, Spectrum was able to get free access for its customers to Disney’s streaming services.
This deal buoyed all TV and media stocks. But Disney owns ABC, so for Nexstar, it also meant that its ABC affiliates could come back on in the massive Spectrum markets.
But then on Thursday afternoon, news broke that Disney was in exploratory discussions with Nexstar about selling ABC to the company. Bloomberg originally broke the story, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter. Nexstar stock surged more than 5% higher Thursday on the news.
According to the reports, the talks with Disney were about both the ABC network and the ABC stations that it owns. Obviously, this is all up in the air, and there are reportedly other potential suitors, but it certainly bears watching.
It could be a good fit for Nexstar, which is obviously a leader in the market. But Nexstar also owns the majority share of the CW Network, so it has experience running networks; ABC would be a huge expansion of that business.
This is definitely something for investors to keep an eye on, as things appear to be moving quickly.
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Dave Kovaleski has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Walt Disney. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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