Tegna, one of the last large publicly held station groups, announced a $5.4 billion deal with Apollo and media-focused hedge fund Standard General to take the company private. The deal for Tegna’s 64 stations comes to fruition as the nation’s largest station group, Nexstar, is taking steps to bolster its national reach by wrangling a deal to acquire The CW Network from WarnerMedia and Paramount (formerly ViacomCBS).This activity is driving speculation about Nexstar making next-generation programming plans for its nearly 200 stations in 116 markets around the country — ranging from the nation’s largest market (New York City’s WPIX-TV) to market No.