Broadcaster Nexstar Media said Friday it’s buying The Hill, a leading purveyor of Beltway news, for $130 million as it expands in digital content.
The Hill had 48 million average monthly users and 2.2 billion total pageviews in 2020 according to Comscore and attracted more than 4 million followers and 914 million video views on Twitter.
It has more than 100 journalists covering political news and events. It is ad-supported. The deal is the latest in a consolidation in the digital media space that has been marked by acquisitions, the latest being Buzzfeed’s merger with a SPAC and purchase of Complex Networks.
“Nexstar’s omni-channel approach to content distribution will allow it to expand The Hill’s reach and revenue channels while creating synergistic opportunities” national cablenetwork, NewsNation (formerly WGN America) and local news platforms where 5,500 journalists producing over 275,000 hours of local and national news annually, Nexstar said.
Its COO Tom Carter cited a “commitment to deliver trusted, unbiased, fact-based journalism that engages and informs our audiences across all screens and devices. The Hill has a nationally recognized brand known for delivering balanced political reporting, as well as authentic opinions and perspectives, and is highly complementary” to NewsNation.”
He said the outlet, founded and chaired by Jimmy Finkelstein, is “strongly profitable.”
In December, Nexstar acquired BestReviews and will continue to focus on “select strategic, accretive digital investments to complement, leverage and scale our content offerings.”
Finkelstein said, “It has been an honor to lead and transform The Hill into the premier news outlet that it is today. With the help of HRS Management, we have substantially grown the business and audience. We are confident that Nexstar will continue to accelerate this tremendous growth.”
HRS Management is The Hill’s largest investor.
Texas-based Nexstar operates 199 television stations in 116 markets covering about 39% of all U.S. TV households with affiliates of all major networks. Its digital division operates 120 local websites and 284 mobile apps offering hyper-local content and verticals. The networks division operates NewsNation, which reaches 75 million television homes, multicast network Antenna TV, and WGN Radio in Chicago.
Nexstar also owns a 31.3% ownership stake in TV Food Network.
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