Supreme Court Shuts Down Nexstar

The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a major blow to Nexstar Media Group on Monday by refusing to hear the television giant's appeal in a high-stakes antitrust lawsuit brought by DirecTV.

By turning away the appeal, the high court left intact a lower court's decision that allows DirecTV's lawsuit over allegedly inflated content-distribution fees to move forward in federal court in New York City.

DirecTV's 2023 lawsuit accuses Nexstar and two other station owners of violating antitrust laws by bypassing a competitive process for rebroadcasting rights in specific markets. According to DirecTV, the companies secretly colluded to demand artificially high fees. When DirecTV refused to pay, stations went dark for a million subscribers, resulting in thousands of cancellations and significant lost revenue for the provider.

Nexstar had argued that a company can only sue for price-fixing if it actually pays the disputed prices, maintaining that DirecTV lacked the legal standing to bring the case. A federal judge initially dismissed the suit, but the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision in December, ruling that DirecTV could pursue claims based on lost profits from channels it could not distribute.

In its petition to the Supreme Court, Irving, Texas-headquartered Nexstar warned that the 2nd Circuit's ruling conflicted with decisions from other federal appeals courts and exposed sellers to sweeping liability and coercive settlement pressure. With the Supreme Court declining to intervene, the antitrust case will now proceed.