Nexstar Media on Monday announced reaching a multi-year distribution deal with Hulu’s virtual MVPD live streaming TV service, covering local stations and continued carriage of its cable news network.
The agreement includes 122 of Nexstar’s local TV stations such as ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox affiliates, as well as its MyNetworkTV affiliates and independent stations. It also covers carriage of Nexstar’s NewsNation cable network on Hulu + Live TV.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Hulu + Live TV costs $70 per month, a price which in addition to live TV also includes Hulu on-demand programming as well as ad-supported versions of Disney+ and ESPN+. The Hulu vMVPD ended 2022 with 4.5 million subscribers.
When it comes to broadcasters reaching carriage deals with virtual MVPDs, Nexstar is one of the companies that has said it wants a place at the negotiating table instead of network hands leading the way.
“We firmly believe that we should control our own destiny with regard to the virtual MVPDs, instead of allowing the network to negotiate on our behalf,” said Nexstar COO Tom Carter during the company’s fourth quarter earnings call. “Given the lack of regulation in the digital world, it’s important that we remain united as an industry.”
The comments came after a disagreement between the CBS affiliate board, representing station owners such as Nexstar, and Paramount over terms for CBS affiliates on vMVPDs. That situation saw numerous local CBS affiliates pulled from FuboTV in February, but later returned after a new deal was reached.
In February Carter said that virtual MVPDs account for less than 10% of Nexstar’s gross distribution revenue.