Colorado TV news in the crosshairs of conservative Sinclair broadcast giant

The news behind the news in Colorado

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Some on the right in Denver might have reason to celebrate the holidays a little early this year.

Already, a deal was in the works for the parent company of KDVR Fox31 to take over KUSA 9NEWS. That’s gotten plenty of attention for the way it could reshape the local TV news landscape in Denver.

Like, you know, the way a chainsaw might reshape someone’s face.

But now, an aggressive move this week from the conservative broadcast giant Sinclair to buy out E.W. Scripps, which owns Denver7, has added an entirely new dimension.

If the Nexstar deal gets FCC approval and is successful, that would see Fox31 gobbling up 9NEWS. And if the Sinclair bid can get through corporate boardroom high-finance hurdles, then Sinclair would scarf down Denver7. Such a one-two punch would leave CBS Colorado as the lone unaffected station — an outlet with an owner who one close media watcher has recently observed shifting to “appease the right.”

Should these two separate media consolidation deals go through, it could radically alter Denver’s TV news market.

In 2018, Sheelah Kolhatkar wrote an in-depth story for the New Yorker about the “growth of Sinclair’s conservative media empire” and its executive chairman, whom she described as an ardent supporter of Donald Trump who “has not been shy about using his stations to advance his political ideology.”

That same year, the Baltimore-area broadcaster had made embarrassing headlines for its promos by local news personalities across the country who were “eerily reciting identical scripts with phrases often used by the president when criticizing mainstream news organizations,” according to the L.A. Times.

In September, both Sinclair and Nexstar had their local stations put Jimmy Kimmel’s show on ice after the late-night comedian made controversial remarks following the killing of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Typically, TV takeovers like the one proposed by Nexstar might run afoul of federal regulations. But it is not a stretch to imagine President Donald Trump welcoming more local TV news consolidation — or any particular broadcast deal — if he believes it might somehow benefit him.

To that end, Nexstar chair and CEO Perry Sook “went out of his way to praise President Donald Trump while asking regulators to approve a $6.2 billion deal to buy rival Tegna,” Poynter’s Al Tompkins has reported.

KUSA 9NEWS is known for its prolific accountability reporting, while Nexstar’s station in Denver, Fox31, doesn’t particularly get as much attention for that.

The station targeted for acquisition does beaucoup local journalism that moves the needle, and the 9NEWS innovative show “Next” runs a micro-giving campaign that has raised more than $15 million for Colorado nonprofits. Fox31 last year raised nearly $700,000 to provide protective gear for law enforcement and runs a series called “Support the Shield.”

‘Confusing or even alarming’

In Colorado, Sinclair’s bid for Scripps would also have impact outside of the state’s capital city.

Beyond owning KMGH Denver7, Scripps also owns KOAA News5 in Colorado Springs. There, that station is already in the middle of a station swap with the Gray TV-owned KKTV, which would create a duopoly.

An announcement about that deal stated that Scripps “will also be expanding its footprint to Western Colorado, acquiring KKCO (NBC) and low power station KJCT-LP (ABC) in Grand Junction.”

So, potentially even more Colorado real estate for Sinclair.

Proponents of local TV news consolidation, like the National Broadcasters Association, say the FCC allowing ownership deals to go through would offer local stations the scale to compete with large tech giants like YouTube or Netflix, which don’t have similar restrictions.

On Nov. 17, Scripps President and CEO Adam Symson sent an email to staff acknowledging that some in the company might find the news of Sinclair’s unsolicited takeover bid of its smaller rival “confusing or even alarming.”

He offered reassurances that the company was on “firm financial footing” and reiterated something he said he had told staff in early November.

From the email, obtained by this newsletter:

As I said in my remarks to you on our Nov. 7 town hall, we are making tremendous progress on our plan to further strengthen the company’s financial position and performance and to capitalize on growth opportunities such as sports and connected TV. Part of that plan is to carefully identify markets where we can do station swaps and sales to improve Local Media division margins, which improves the company’s financial durability overall. We are steadily and meaningfully paying down our debt, which is our highest priority around financial improvement.

Since then, Scripps has taken a defensive posture against Sinclair.

This week, the Scripps board adopted what’s called a shareholder rights plan. The plan, “commonly known as a poison pill, aims at protecting shareholders against coercive tactics, Scripps said,” according to reporting from the respected wire service Reuters. Such a plan allows existing shareholders to dilute shares purchased by a potentially hostile bidder, if need be.

Over email, the general managers for both KOAA News5 in the Springs and Denver7 each separately said that they weren’t in a position to comment or speculate on the potential local impact of the Scripps bid; they both passed along a statement from Scripps. The company said it doesn’t plan to comment until its board reviews the unsolicited proposal from Sinclair.

If the conservative broadcaster gets its way, Sinclair’s first foothold in Colorado would help grow the company into a local broadcasting behemoth with some 240 stations nationwide.

Thus far, neither of these deals is set in stone.

This week, the FCC officially opened its review of the proposed Nexstar-Tegna deal in which Nexstar is seeking waivers in order to bypass a cap on ownership rules. The FCC is now seeking comments from the public about it.

“All petitions to deny the merger are due by December 31, with oppositions to those petitions due by January 15, 2026 and replies due by January 26,” Matthew Keys reported for the broadcast industry site The Desk.

Some of Colorado’s top Democratic leaders have condemned the potential takeover of 9NEWS. But it should be noted that not all conservatives in Denver are seeing visions of sugar plums about this potential deal.

Jon Caldara, who runs the libertarian-leaning nonprofit Independence Institute think tank, wrote a column for Colorado Politics in which he criticized it from a conservative point of view.

“Colorado conservatives have dreamt of the day they could kick 9News anchor, and the Imelda Marcos of sport coats, Kyle Clark to the curb. Their day may be coming,” he wrote. “And I must admit, there’s a certain satisfaction imagining Kyle selling his wardrobe at a garage sale. But conservatives will find a national conglomerate owning half the local TV news outlets is worse.”

Caldara concluded: “When the new owners of channel 9 start shedding costs at all four of their Front Range news stations, it likely won’t result in more coverage of conservative stories, just less coverage of all stories.”

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➡️ This newsletter is proudly sponsored by The Colorado Health Foundation. As a proud funder of Colorado Media Project, the home of Press Forward Colorado, the CHF understands that healthy communities need a healthy news ecosystem.

This year, The Colorado Health Foundation will be working to combat disinformation and misinformation, and helping nonprofits build media literacy.

• Read our post titled “Getting in the News in a Changing Media Landscape” that includes five concrete steps that changemakers can take to build influence through local media.

Recently, the Colorado News Collaborative called our annual Pulse Poll a “trove of information useful to reporters.” The Colorado Health Foundation’s Katie Peshek talked to journalists across the state about the poll results, which you can watch here. We also have Pulse Poll slides here, showing how you can use what we found to guide your reporting on topics and bring facts and data to your stories. ⬅️

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Let’s talk about freelance journalism rates in Colorado

Earlier this month, this newsletter reported what newsrooms are paying full-time journalists in Colorado.

Some readers said they were curious about how the rate landscape looks for freelancers as full-time staff jobs give way to more contract and gig work.

Colorado’s Equal Pay for Equal Work Act requires employers to post pay scales for full-time jobs, which makes freelance rates less transparent.

I plan to ask news outlets what they’re paying freelancers these days, and in the meantime, I’d love to hear from you about your experience as a freelancer.

Fill out this brief Google Form about your experience and what you want editors and publishers to know about freelance journalism in Colorado.

Erica Lopez and Jordan Chavez say they’re leaving Denver’s 9NEWS in joint statement

Two news anchors at KUSA 9NEWS, Erica Lopez and Jordan Chavez, announced this week they will be leaving the station.

“After a combined 13 years at 9NEWS, it’s the end of an era,” they posted in a joint statement on Instagram. “This dynamic duo is chasing new adventures. Stay tuned for what’s next for us.”

@ericalopeztv

Erica on Instagram: "*BREAKING NEWS* After a combined 13 years …

Lopez said her last day would be Dec. 26 and Chavez will depart on Jan. 9.

In Colorado, Axios gets an AI partner and expands to the Denver suburbs

Along with its foray into Boulder and Colorado Springs, the hyper-digestible Axios Local digital newsletter company is looking to expand even further in Colorado.

“We are hiring a Reporter to cover Douglas and Arapahoe counties in Colorado as part of our growing local news initiative, which is extending our mission to America’s hometowns,” Axios has announced.

Axios is looking for someone to author “two twice-weekly Axios newsletters with potential to increase cadence that feature insights and scoops that matter most to the hyper-local audience.” Pay is $65,000 to $100,000.

Beyond that, the company announced this week what it called a “first-of-its-kind trial partnership” to give Axios journalists access to “TeroAI’s patented AI-powered geospatial data platform.”

Here’s more if you can decipher it:

Under the partnership, Axios reporters will have access to TeroAI’s rich geospatial analytics — giving them new data-driven context and enabling more nuanced, impactful reporting in local markets. The scope of the pilot includes the municipalities of Denver and Boulder and applies across the state of Colorado.

The pilot will run from December 1, 2025 through mid-January 2026. During this trial Axios will be able to deploy the TeroAI platform for story planning, research, and data enrichment. TeroAI will be monitoring and evaluating the usage of its system in this non-traditional use case of geospatial data systems.

So, from a consumer perspective, see if you notice any positive changes in the journalism from the Axios folks in Colorado.

SPJ ‘Top of the Rockies’ contest opens next week

Newsrooms in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Wyoming should start preparing applications for the annual Top of the Rockies awards.

Sponsored and managed by the Colorado chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, of which I’m a board member, the contest opens Dec. 10 and closes Jan. 26.

You know it can be a time-consuming, but important, year-end endeavor for your newsroom, so alert your staff and get a day on the calendar when you can work on them together. Bookmark this site for turning in submissions.

SPJ Colorado will announce the awards in April during the spring reception.

“Entries will be accepted from journalism organizations whose mission is independent coverage of news striving to be fair and balanced without a public relations or activist agenda,” SPJ Colorado Co-President Deborah Brobst said in an announcement. “Disputes about the nature of the organization that enters the contest will be decided by the Contest Committee.”

A Denver sports YouTuber finds success with over-the-top antics and ‘lowbrow gags’

Brandon Perna, a 41-year-old YouTuber who runs a Broncos-dedicated channel called “That’s Good Sports,” earned a profile in the Denver Post this week.

Reporter Nick Coaltrain visited Perna in his home studio and explained the success of a certain kind of media professional in the online creator economy.

The reporter noted that it’s an over-the-top personality, antics, humor, and “lowbrow gags” that seemed to provide the secret sauce.

The channel has racked up more than 820,000 subscribers — no small feat. Doing so takes Perna working 15-hour days, we learn, to post about four videos per week. Audience growth led him to hire a co-writer and editors.

From the piece:

His self-described “bad football news presented in the form of even worse comedy” has grown into T-shirts, coffee custom-crafted for fans frustrated with awful penalties and an online community that spans the globe. His weekly “curse wheel,” which randomly targets teams for misfortune, had posted a playoff-level 9-2 record of successful curses through mid-November.

He’s navigated shifting YouTube algorithms, capricious sports gods and a saturated online market to turn his channel into a thriving operation.

Beyond personality, we learn it also takes 75-hour workweeks and missed time with family to achieve the kind of audience growth Perna has. He has also been able to leverage those eyeballs into “sponsorships and contractual obligations.”

“The support is overwhelming and humbling, and I try to never take that for granted,” Perna told the Post. “Because they keep you relevant in the space.”

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🌿 This week’s newsletter is proudly supported by PR firm Grasslands: A Journalism-Minded Agency™, founded by Ricardo Baca (ex-Denver Post, ex-Rocky Mountain News, and current Colorado Public Radio board of directors). We understand journalists because we were journalists — and we’re here to help. Need expert sources or compelling stories? Our diverse client roster includes beloved Colorado institutions (Naropa University and Illegal Pete’s), innovative wellness brands (Boulder County Farmers Markets, Naturally Colorado, Eden Health Club), bold natural products businesses (Wild Zora, Flatiron Food Factory, Flower Union Brands), and other purpose-driven organizations. As creators of the Colorado Journalist Meet-Up and longtime champions of quality journalism, Grasslands recognizes the essential role reporters play in our communities. Our team is ready to connect you with sources, data, and unique perspectives that elevate your reporting.

Have a story you’re working on? Email Ricardo directly: ricardo@mygrasslands.com. Together, we’re crafting better narratives — one story at a time. 🌿

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More Colorado media odds & ends

📺 9NEWS “Next” anchor Kyle Clark stood alone this week amongst his broadcast and MSM colleagues in highlighting recent comments on-air from a well-connected “MAGA podcaster” in Colorado who Clark reported “called for the execution of several Colorado Democrats by name,” specifically by hanging, and blamed “Satan Jews” for imprisoning former GOP Mesa County elections clerk Tina Peters. Clark also reported on air that in a recent episode, the attorney for Peters “agreed that military tribunals and mass hangings are coming, issuing a direct warning to the judges and elected officials keeping Peters in prison.”

🗣 In 2023, Clark gave a speech in which the news anchor acknowledged that covering extremism isn’t easy, because it can bring accusations of bias, not to mention threats of violence against journalists and their families. (Clark has praised 9NEWS and its parent company, Tegna, for taking the safety of its journalists “very, very seriously.”) “But this is the essential work of our time,” Clark argued in his speech. “And local journalists are best positioned to paint a picture of rising extremism and authoritarianism that is not just seen at the national level but is beginning to become embedded in our community.” 9NEWS and its owner Tegna are in the middle of a corporate takeover deal by Nexstar, which owns Denver’s Fox31.

📲 Jefferson County Sheriff Reggie Marinelli “is on a mission to head off shootings like the one at Evergreen High School in September, when a student gravely injured two classmates before killing himself,” Andrea Dukakis reported for Colorado Public Radio. “Marinelli wants a new Colorado law that requires social media companies to respond more quickly when authorities want digital information on users posting violent or threatening content.”

🎙 ColoRadio is hosting its final guest of 2025 with a Dec. 12 conversation at the Denver Press Club with Laurie Polisky, a “Denver-based documentarian working on a podcast about dream technology.”

👀 Spencer Soicher of 9NEWS reported that some community members in Denver are concerned that the Anschutz name might have helped residents with familial ties to the local billionaire newspaper owner get what they wanted in a neighborhood dispute over roads and how the city responded. “How much influence comes with the name Anschutz?” Soicher asked in the clip. In a subsequent story, he wrote: “Phil Anschutz, a conservative billionaire whose name appears on hospitals, a medical school, and a local newspaper, is Colorado’s wealthiest resident. The Gazette, which Anschutz owns, covered the reversal last month, but did not mention that the pushback to it came from the wife of Anschutz’s son. Jill Anschutz lives near the project site and organized a petition opposing the original design.” (That son, Christian, is on the editorial board of the Denver Gazette.)

⚙️ Peter Waack, the president and CEO at Rocky Mountain Student Media Corp, said on Linkedin this week that he is “starting a new position as Operations Team Member at Southwest Airlines.”

🌞 “Community journalism has been the very definition of my more than three decades in the trade,” John Stroud wrote in a column this week. “And I couldn’t love it more than in my current role as one of the many freelance correspondents for the Sopris Sun.”

🗣 The Colorado chapter of the Public Relations Society of America is holding a media roundtable Dec. 10 that includes Esteban L. Hernandez of Axios Denver, Linnea Covington, the managing editor of DiningOut Denver, and journalist Sheila Flynn.

🪖 Flashback: As a controversy rages over some members of Congress urging military leaders to refuse illegal orders, some might recall when a Colorado congressman publicly said he and others were urging military generals to resign “in a blaze of glory” if they didn’t like White House policies.

🇩🇪 + 🇯🇵 Colorado is getting global attention for its growing news deserts. A journalist from Germany and one from Japan reached out this week, saying they are planning stories following the recent closure of the Limon Leader.

I’m Corey Hutchins, manager of the Colorado College Journalism Institute, advisor to Colorado Media Project, and a board member of the state Society of Professional Journalists chapter. For nearly a decade, I reported on the U.S. local media scene for Columbia Journalism Review, and I’ve been a journalist for longer at multiple news organizations. Most recently, I’ve been contributing to Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab and The Conversation. The nonprofit Colorado Media Project is underwriting this newsletter, and my “Inside the News” column appears at COLab. (If you’d like to underwrite or sponsor this newsletter, hit me up.) Follow me on Bluesky, reply or subscribe to this weekly newsletter here, or e-mail me at CoreyHutchins [at] gmail [dot] com.