April 10 (Reuters) – U.S. broadcast station owner Nexstar Media is seeking to counter national networks through its affiliate stations, Bloomberg News reported ‌on Friday, citing a regulatory document and sources.

The largest U.S. local-TV ‌broadcasting group has begun preventing its stations from filling local newscasts with segments produced by ​national networks such as ABC, NBC and CBS and is asking them to use content from its NewsNation cable channel instead, the report said.

Nexstar declined to comment to Reuters.

The company controls more than 200 stations in 116 U.S. markets reaching 220 ‌million people. It also ⁠operates prominent media properties such as NewsNation.

Nexstar ended its stations’ agreement with Comcast’s NBC to share nationally reported segments, but ⁠national news broadcasts like NBC’s Today Show and Nightly News are unaffected, Bloomberg reported.

CEO Perry Sook told some employees in March that he sees NewsNation “becoming ultimately the ​exclusive wire ​service and national news partner for ​all of our local news operations, ‌replacing the third-party and wire feeds and other news services we currently use to construct our local newscast,” Bloomberg said, citing a recording.

A federal judge on Friday extended an order temporarily freezing Nexstar’s acquisition of rival broadcast station owner Tegna.

The companies closed the $3.54 billion deal after the Justice Department and ‌the Federal Communications Commission approved it on March ​19. But the merger, which President Donald ​Trump has publicly backed, faces ​legal hurdles after rival DirecTV filed a federal antitrust lawsuit.

Eight ‌states, led by California and New ​York, have also sought ​a temporary restraining order to stop the merger.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has argued that national networks like NBC and Walt Disney’s ABC have ​amassed too much power, ‌saying he wants to empower local affiliates owned by companies like ​Tegna and Nexstar to preempt programming.

(Reporting by Natalia Bueno Rebolledo in ​Mexico City; Editing by William Mallard)