Laid off from Nexstar Media Group.

What Nexstar Media Group layoffs have meant for employees

If you work at a Tegna station, the court case and the severance terms run on separate clocks. The April injunction bars further integration of the two companies and keeps their operations separate while it stands, and the antitrust trial is set for July 2027, according to Nexstar's second-quarter 2026 report. Under the merger agreement, Tegna employees who remained after the March 19, 2026 closing and lose their jobs involuntarily by March 2027 have a severance benchmark. It's the Tegna plan that applied to each of them until 2026 ends and Nexstar's own plan for comparable employees after that, with Tegna service counted toward Nexstar's severance determinations, though the section denies them third-party beneficiary rights. If you're weighing whether to see a reorganization through, the date a cut would land is worth having in view.

When Nexstar cut at former Tribune stations in 2019 and 2026, newsrooms bore the brunt. Most of the people laid off in 2019 were news staff, two sources told The Desk, and at WGN the 2026 on-air layoffs capped months of cuts behind the camera. Floor directors went the October before and newswriters and technical directors the month before, according to the Chicago Tribune, which counted nearly two dozen WGN jobs lost by late February. That same week three creative services staff were reassigned to a new regional hub in Nashville, and creative services workers at other Nexstar stations were laid off as the company consolidated operations, the paper's sources said. If your creative services job is being drawn into a hub, a reassignment and a layoff are different outcomes, starting with where the hub sits, Nashville in WGN's case. Illinois unemployment benefits sets out how claims work in WGN's state, and California's and New York's do the same for KTLA and WPIX.

Union contracts covered 1,869 Nexstar employees when 2025 ended, about one in seven, according to the 10-K, and the union disputes on record have turned on what people leave with. SAG-AFTRA's 2026 complaint, as The Desk's February 2026 report relayed it, was about severance pay itself. At The Hill the guild's first contract made voluntary buyouts available to soften layoffs the union said Nexstar was insistent on, and some of the 18 who left that newsroom in September 2025 took one, according to The Desk's account of those cuts. Where a buyout comes before layoffs are settled, its terms and what a layoff would pay make a pair worth weighing, since only the buyout is your choice.

The same filing has Nexstar continually seeking cost savings across its own stations, the stations it serves and its other businesses, and it lists closer integration of The CW and The Hill among the ways its late-2024 restructuring cut costs. The cuts on record have come soon after a purchase, as at The CW, and years after one, as at The Hill, which Nexstar agreed to buy for $130 million in 2021 by The Desk's September account, and at WGN, bought with Tribune in 2019. Ad sales in particular has been reshaped more than once, with national sales brought in house in 2023 and its middle management cut in the late-2024 restructuring, by the filing's account.

If your Nexstar job is in Texas, whether at the Irving offices or at stations such as KDAF in Dallas and KIAH in Houston, Texas unemployment benefits sets out how the state handles a claim, and layoffs in Texas lists the notices other employers there have filed.

A sourced history of Nexstar Media Group layoffs

• February 2026, WGN, KTLA and WPIX layoffs

  WGN laid off eight veteran reporters and anchors on a Monday and three creative services staff that Wednesday, the Chicago Tribune reported. About a dozen on-air workers lost jobs at KTLA and WPIX, according to The Desk, as Nexstar said it was taking steps to compete in a period of unprecedented change.

• September 2025, The Hill layoffs and buyouts

  Eighteen people at The Hill were laid off or took buyouts in one week, six of them represented by the CWA, two sources told The Desk. The newsroom's first union contract, approved that July, guaranteed voluntary buyouts to mitigate layoffs.

• December 2024, planned broadcasting and sales cuts

  Nexstar planned pink slips for slightly more than 200 workers at some stations and sales offices, under 2% of its workforce by its own estimate, The Desk reported.

• Late 2022 and March 2023, The CW cuts

  Between 30 and 40 CW staffers, communications head Paul Hewitt among them, were laid off soon after Nexstar's majority purchase closed, Variety reported. Over a dozen more, mostly in marketing and finance, went in March 2023 once projects or contracts ran out.

• December 2019, cuts at former Tribune stations

  Months after Nexstar's $4.1 billion takeover of Tribune Media, dozens were laid off at its stations in Denver, Des Moines, Indianapolis, Oklahoma City and Greensboro, North Carolina, two sources told The Desk. Each newsroom lost four to 12 people.

• September 2018, Tribune Media's KDAF and KIAH cuts

  Before Nexstar owned KDAF, Tribune Media laid off 68 people there and canceled Morning Dose and NewsFix, the Dallas Observer reported. A Tribune notice in our tracker lists 52 more jobs at Houston's KIAH.

What to do if you're laid off from Nexstar Media Group

• File for unemployment in the state where you worked. Benefits run from your filing date, and severance usually doesn't block you. Nexstar Media Group's biggest hubs: Texas, Illinois, California, New York. Somewhere else? Every state is here.
• Apply for financial and hardship assistance. Unemployment supplements income, but food benefits, health coverage and utility help are often available as well. Here's some of what Nexstar Media Group's hub states run: Texas, Illinois, California, New York, and every other state is here.
• Mind the health insurance window. Losing coverage opens a 60-day special enrollment period, and an ACA plan usually beats unsubsidized COBRA. Compare your options before the employer coverage lapses, and read how the COBRA clocks run if you are weighing it seriously.
• Get your real runway number. Severance plus savings divided by reality. The calculator takes five minutes.
• Know which clocks are already running. Severance review windows, COBRA election, visa grace periods, and 401(k) rollovers all run on federal deadlines that started at termination. All five deadlines are here.