As part of the company’s efforts to expand its linear reach, Nexstar plans to distribute a Sunday morning political talk show in a collaboration between the CW, NewsNation and another Nexstar property, the political website The Hill, TheWrap can report exclusively.
The series would come from and be produced by NewsNation, which currently airs “The Hill on NewsNation” on weeknights, moderated by Blake Burman.
In a recent conversation with TheWrap, CW president of entertainment Brad Schwartz revealed that talks are in progress on what would effectively be a spin-off of The Hill’s nightly show that currently airs on Nexstar-owned NewsNation. The new series would air Sundays on local CW stations across the country.
Schwartz explained that the idea is inspired in part by the success the network had last year partnering with NewsNation for one of the GOP presidential primary debates, which drew a combined 4 million viewers.
“CBS News and CBS make ’60 Minutes,’ which is a primetime thing, or they make ‘Face the Nation’ or ’48 Hours.’ Other companies have news organizations that then create content that could be used in other places. We’re thinking about it the same way,” Schwartz said.
“That’s something we’re in the process of doing right now, which is taking a Hill political Sunday morning show and trying to clear it through stations. The Nexstar stations are certainly going to take it,” he added.
Schwartz also said that the show would have both CW and The Hill branding.
Nexstar bought The Hill from owner Jimmy Finkelstein in 2021 for $130 million. Finkelstein, who inherited that publication from his father, went on to found the website The Messenger in 2023 – it shuttered after just over 9 months.
