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Fact check: What percentage of local news outlets are owned by conservative or liberal-leaning corporations?
Executive Summary
Recent empirical work does not support a single precise percentage for how many local news outlets are owned by clearly conservative- or liberal-leaning corporations, but the best recent estimates show roughly 40% of local TV stations are controlled by three major broadcast conglomerates—Gray, Nexstar and Sinclair; Sinclair in particular has been associated with conservative-leaning editorial pushes, while the others show mixed or varied impacts [1]. Broader claims about six corporations controlling 90% of “the media” conflate different markets and do not directly answer the ideological-ownership share question [2].
1. Big Picture Claim: “Who owns local news?” — Consolidation concentrates power, not ideology alone.
Media consolidation studies document that ownership of local TV is concentrated: Gray, Nexstar and Sinclair together control about 40% of local TV stations and operate in more than 80% of U.S. media markets, making them central actors in local news ecosystems [1]. The oft-cited “Big Six control 90% of the media” framing refers to broader national conglomerates and aggregate markets, and does not map cleanly to local-TV ideological leanings; therefore a percentage of outlets under “conservative” or “liberal” corporate control cannot be read off from that 90% claim [2].
2. The Sinclair question: evidence of a conservative editorial influence and mixed local effects.
Multiple empirical studies identify a distinct “Sinclair effect” after acquisitions—stations exhibiting more commentary-style pieces, partisan-toned segments, and reductions in certain types of local coverage—suggesting Sinclair’s centralized practices often push content in ways scholars link to conservative framing [3] [4]. A 2024–2025 wave of research connects Sinclair acquisitions to declines in local business coverage and measurable changes in local news content, supporting the view that Sinclair’s ownership is associated with ideological and content shifts [5] [4].
3. The other big conglomerates: Nexstar and Gray show divergent outcomes.
Scholarly work from late 2024 and early 2025 finds Nexstar acquisitions often increased local coverage, while Gray’s changes were minimal; these divergent outcomes show that consolidation does not uniformly translate into a single ideological orientation across owners [6] [1]. Researchers emphasize that owner-specific management strategies, not merely corporate size, drive changes in local content, so labeling all large owners as uniformly conservative or liberal mischaracterizes the empirical variation [6].
4. Why assigning a binary ideological label to corporations is unreliable.
Ownership does not equate to a single ideological posture: corporate groups contain diverse outlets, management strategies, and market incentives that produce heterogeneous editorial choices across stations. Studies caution that while Sinclair shows patterns consistent with conservative slant, other conglomerates produce mixed or locally tailored results, meaning any headline percentage of “conservative-owned local outlets” will depend on definitional choices and which outlets (TV vs. radio vs. print) are counted [6] [1].
5. Methodological limits: what the studies do and do not measure.
Available studies focus heavily on local TV stations and on measurable shifts in story counts, formats, and business coverage; they do not produce a simple national percentage of outlets that are ideologically conservative or liberal across all media types. The March 2025 and 2024 studies provide solid metrics for market reach and content change, but they do not translate directly into a precise nationwide ideological-ownership percentage without additional definitional choices [1] [6].
6. Competing narratives and possible agendas behind the data.
Advocates worried about media consolidation emphasize concentration as a threat to diverse viewpoints, often highlighting Sinclair as a cautionary example [1] [3]. Industry defenders or owners argue consolidation can bring economies of scale and more stable local reporting, pointing to Nexstar’s increases in local coverage as evidence [6]. Both perspectives rely on selective metrics: one prioritizes ideological homogeneity, the other operational capacity, so readers should treat claims of a single ownership-ideology percentage as politically freighted [6] [3].
7. Bottom line and best-supported estimate based on recent research.
The most defensible, evidence-based takeaway is that about 40% of local TV stations are owned by three major conglomerates, and within that group Sinclair demonstrates consistent patterns tied to conservative editorial practices, while Nexstar and Gray show mixed effects—so a rough, context-limited statement that a substantial share of local TV is under owners with documented conservative interventions is supportable, but a precise national percentage of “conservative-owned local outlets” across all media types is not established by the cited studies [1] [4].