Nexstar Media, the Dallas-based TV station owner at the center of the high-profile controversy over the preemption of Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night ABC show, may finally be realizing the potential of NewsNation, its five-year-old cable news network.
NewsNation’s coverage of slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s memorial service Sunday topped both CNN and MSNBC, reaching millions of viewers and putting the Chicago-based network squarely in the cable news mix.
While it still has detractors and skeptics, the former home of “The Andy Griffith Show,” “Bozo’s Circus” and Cubs games, has certainly come a long way.
NewsNation launched in September 2020 as a three-hour block of prime-time programming on the former WGN America, a fledgling cable news network with bold ambitions, a plethora of doubters and few viewers, some of whom were likely searching in vain for the “Blue Bloods” reruns it replaced.
Early struggles included programming shakeups, management defections and ratings so low the network bordered on irrelevancy, even as it built its news offerings daypart-by-daypart.
Five years later, NewsNation has evolved into a 24/7 cable news network that has carved out its own niche behind the big three — Fox News, MSNBC and CNN — with some big-name stars backed by an army of local TV reporters and a middle-of-the-road mindset.
Still something less than a ratings juggernaut — NewsNation ranked 55th among all cable networks in prime time during August, according to Nielsen — it is gaining traction. NewsNation has come so far that it was parodied in a memorable Beavis and Butt-Head sketch last year on “Saturday Night Live,” a sure sign that the network is beginning to make its mark.
“When people notice us, we’re doing well,” said Cherie Grzech, 55, a former Fox News executive who joined NewsNation in July 2021 to head the day-to-day news operation. “In late night, to be talked about, is a sign that people are aware of what we’re doing, and they’re watching.”
Nexstar Media bought WGN America in 2019 as part of its $4.1 billion acquisition of Chicago-based Tribune Media — the former broadcast parent of Tribune Publishing — creating the nation’s largest local TV station group and moving WGN’s TV, radio and cable stations under the Dallas company’s ownership.
In January 2020, Nexstar announced plans to turn the former WGN superstation into a cable news network. The stated mission from the start was to present unbiased news to lure viewers weary of partisan cable news offerings.
NewsNation’s owner made the news last week — even on its own cable network — when Nexstar announced the decision to pull “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” from its ABC-affiliated stations over comments the late-night host made regarding the recent assassination of Kirk.
ABC followed suit and suspended Kimmel “indefinitely,” fueling a free speech firestorm that could reshape the media landscape in the U.S., according to some industry analysts. Facing widespread backlash, ABC announced Monday it would reinstate Kimmel for Tuesday night’s show, while Nexstar said it will continue to preempt it.
Nexstar’s cable news network was born in turbulent times, going live on Sept. 1, 2020, amid a pandemic, civil unrest and a polarizing presidential election. NewsNation sought to hit the ground running, but the nascent network was little-watched and much-criticized at the outset.
The original weekday prime-time lineup featured Joe Donlon, Marni Hughes, Rob Nelson and weathercaster Albert Ramon, helmed by Jennifer Lyons, the former news director at WGN-Ch. 9. Only Hughes remains at NewsNation.
An early stumble was an exclusive September 2020 one-on-one with President Donald Trump at the end of his first term, conducted at the White House by Donlon. It was widely panned as a softball interview that failed to boost NewsNation’s ratings or stature.
By March 2021, change was already in the air at WGN America, which rebranded as NewsNation and expanded its prime-time lineup to five hours. Then Lyons abruptly resigned as vice president of news, resurfacing several months later as general manager at CBS 2 Chicago, where she subsequently hired Ramon and Donlon away from NewsNation.
NewsNation tapped former ABC News executive Michael Corn to oversee the news operation in May 2021. Under Corn, the network launched its own personality-driven prime-time lineup from New York, the culmination of which was the hiring of Chris Cuomo, who was fired by CNN for allegedly violating network standards by advising his brother, then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, as he navigated sexual harassment allegations.
Cuomo began his eponymous prime-time show at NewsNation in October 2022, anchoring the network’s breakthrough midterm election coverage the following month.
In April 2023, NewsNation unveiled its new studios in New York, where Cuomo, Elizabeth Vargas and Ashleigh Banfield host their prime-time shows. Former Fox News anchor Leland Vittert and political website The Hill, which Nexstar acquired for $130 million in 2021, broadcast shows nightly from NewsNation’s new Washington, D.C., studios.
Last year, NewsNation dropped the last remnant of the former WGN America’s syndicated weekend programming to become a full-fledged 24/7 cable news network.
While New York and Washington, D.C., provide the prime-time programming, daytime shows — from “Morning in America” with Markie Martin to “NewsNation Now” with Nichole Berlie — emanate from Chicago, where the network is still headquartered.
In April 2024, Grzech was elevated to president of news, reporting to former Tribune Media executive Sean Compton, who heads Nexstar Networks. Corn manages the prime-time lineup, while Grzech is essentially responsible for everything else at NewsNation, with 550 employees reporting to her across the three bureaus, including nearly 200 in Chicago.
No less of a resource are 5,500 local journalists at 200 Nexstar owned or partner TV stations across the country, who regularly contribute to breaking news stories on NewsNation.
“We have boots on the ground in these breaking news stories like no one else,” Grzech said. “When it comes down to a breaking news story, those first moments on the ground with people who know the community being able to tell us what’s happening is more powerful than anything we could do.”
Grzech called the local-powered network a “scrappy underdog.” It also has the most unusual cable news headquarters in the country.
Sharing its home with WGN-Ch.9, NewsNation built a sleek $3.5 million studio and a newsroom at the 64-year-old broadcast facility on West Bradley Place in Chicago’s North Center neighborhood, where colorful paintings of Bozo and photos of Garfield Goose still adorn the historic hallways.
Hughes has sat at the studio’s anchor chair since the network’s inception.
“When I came here five years ago, it was a leap of faith,” said Hughes, 46, a Michigan native who previously worked at local TV stations from Fort Wayne to Seattle. “Five years later, we have grown exponentially.”
In 2022, she became the inaugural host of “NewsNation Live,” which airs weekdays from 8 to 11 a.m.
Shifting to mornings was an adjustment for Hughes, who said she is not an early riser by nature. At the same time, Hughes enjoys delivering breaking news in real time during the day, often working with local Nexstar affiliates across the country.
“I think it’s an incredibly important relationship that we have with our local partners,” Hughes said.
That relationship is particularly strong with WGN, sharing pitches in the parking lot with local reporters such as Ben Bradley, Hughes said.
Bradley, a longtime Chicago TV reporter and anchor who has been at WGN-Ch. 9 since 2017, recently put together a two-hour documentary for NewsNation on Jussie Smollett, the “Empire” actor whose claims that he was a victim of a 2019 hate crime in Chicago unraveled during a high-profile court battle.
“I go on NewsNation a lot,” Bradley said during an impromptu hallway stop-and-chat. “And I would argue that it’s better for a national audience to have a local reporter who’s living these stories. So on CNN and MSNBC, they’ll have talking heads talking about crime in Chicago or politics in Chicago. Wouldn’t you rather have a reporter who lives this stuff every day talking about it?”
NewsNation nonetheless lags its cable news rivals in viewership.
In August, NewsNation ranked 55th among all cable networks in prime time with an average of 99,000 viewers, according to Nielsen. Fox News was the top-rated cable network in prime time with an average of 2.3 million viewers, followed by ESPN at 1.0 million viewers and MSNBC at 783,000 viewers.
CNN ranked seventh with an average of 444,000 prime-time viewers in August, according to Nielsen.
On Sunday afternoon, NewsNation surpassed CNN and MSNBC simultaneously during its special coverage of Kirk’s memorial service, averaging 615,000 viewers over six hours and peaking at nearly 2 million viewers just before 3 p.m., according to Nielsen data supplied by NewsNation.
While viewership is growing, some critics contend NewsNation has failed to live up to its mission of delivering unbiased news, dating back to Donlon’s 2020 Trump interview. More questions will likely be raised by parent company Nexstar’s decision last week to pull “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” from its ABC-affiliated stations over on-air comments he made about the potential political leanings of Kirk’s alleged assassin.
Under pressure from FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, ABC followed suit, taking Kimmel off the air “indefinitely.” But facing widespread backlash and calls to boycott the network, ABC reinstated Kimmel this week for a Tuesday night return to the airwaves.
James Speta, a law professor at Northwestern whose expertise includes telecommunications and internet policy, said threats made against ABC were unconstitutional under the First Amendment, and par for the course under the Trump administration. He credits public backlash for getting ABC to ultimately defend those free speech rights.
“I was somewhat surprised and quite heartened by the pushback against President Trump and FCC Chair Carr, which included some Republican senators and some business people,” Speta said Tuesday. “It may well have influenced ABC in calculating the politics and the benefits of putting Kimmel back on the air.”
Nexstar, meanwhile, has a $6.8 billion acquisition of rival TV station owner Tegna pending before the FCC, which will require the agency to lift a 39% national TV audience ownership cap to win approval. Speta said that likely played into Nexstar’s decision to pull Kimmel off its 32 ABC-affiliated stations, a move which Carr praised as “doing the right thing.”
Despite ABC’s reinstatement of Kimmel, Nexstar said Tuesday it will continue to preempt the late-night show on its stations, while monitoring its return.
“We made a decision last week to preempt ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ following what ABC referred to as Mr. Kimmel’s ‘ill-timed and insensitive’ comments at a critical time in our national discourse,” Nexstar said in a statement. “We stand by that decision pending assurance that all parties are committed to fostering an environment of respectful, constructive dialogue in the markets we serve.”
Mark Feldstein, chairman of the broadcast journalism department at the University of Maryland and a former CNN and ABC correspondent, said Nexstar’s leading the charge to pull Kimmel off the air could benefit the proposed merger, but won’t do much to burnish the reputation of NewsNation.
“I think it makes it even harder to claim the mantle of objectivity,” Feldstein said. “Objectivity is as much a marketing gimmick as it is an accurate reflection of the coverage.”
NewsNation is nonetheless ranked as the most unbiased major cable news network by Ad Fontes Media, which rates news sources on the basis of reliability and bias. Its scoring system has MSNBC as “strong left,” Fox as “hyper-partisan right” and CNN as “skews left.” NewsNation leans slightly to the right, but still falls within the middle category.
Political bias varies by show, with Cuomo slightly left of middle and Vittert ranked “strong right,” according to Ad Fontes data.
But the NewsNation mission is perhaps finding its clearest neutral voice — and a growing audience — during the Chicago daytime news blocks.
Nichole Berlie, a veteran local anchor who worked in Boston, St. Louis and Omaha before joining NewsNation at its launch as a weekend anchor and reporter in 2020, shifted to anchor the 5 p.m. weekday “Rush Hour” show in July 2021 during an early prime time shakeup at the then-struggling network.
In January 2024, Berlie moved to middays, taking over the 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. slot following Hughes. Her “NewsNation Now” program topped MSNBC several times last month in the 25- to 54-year-old demo, despite a much smaller total audience, according to Nielsen data provided by NewsNation.
Beyond ratings, Berlie’s show is consistently ranked by Ad Fontes among the most unbiased in cable news.
“We market ourselves as being unbiased,” Berlie said. “We market ourselves as presenting both sides. And I always say, I’m responsible for the three hours that I’m on the air. And I really, truly do my best to do that.”
Building an audience hasn’t been the only challenge for Berlie.
Diagnosed with breast cancer in October 2023, Berlie underwent chemotherapy treatment that caused her hair to fall out. She chose to shave her head and face her viewers with the bald truth of her health battle.
“I work in an industry that obviously brains matter, but people are looking at you — looks matter as well,” Berlie said. “Viewers were amazing. They were so supportive.”
Berlie’s hair has since grown back and her health is good. Her work, which provided solace during her cancer battle, is more important than ever, and she takes pride in the network’s sometimes rocky growth over the past five years.
As to the future of NewsNation, Berlie says stay tuned.
“One of the things we joke about is every six months, something will change,” Berlie said. “But it’s growing, it’s getting better. It’s kind of, in some ways, learning as we go, which isn’t a bad thing.”
rchannick@chicagotribune.com