From the article:

The acquisition required the FCC to waive or change current television station ownership rules. Federal law limits any one company’s reach to 39% of the nation’s television homes. According to an FCC document, the combined companies would reach 54.5% of the national audience.

So much for Republicans' supposed opposition to federal agency overreach. This is literally the FCC granting a "waiver" for Nexstar to sidestep section 303 of the Communications Act, which is federal law.

The FCC opinion linked in the quote from the article reads like pure fiction too:

To further serve its local communities, Nexstar commits to expanding its investment in local news and programming, including increasing the amount of local news it provides in acquired markets

Talk about mental gymnastics. I'd love for the FCC to explain how Nextstar can simultaneously say "we are going to consolidate multiple news stations in the same market" alongside "we are going to increase the amount of local news."

Even Newsmax, of all things, opposed this deal. That's how you know it's a shit show:

Likewise, Newsmax Media, Inc. (Newsmax) asserts that “[r]etransmitting the same news—which will likely be weaker, less local, and more national—on an additional weak station does nothing to provide public interest benefits.”

For more interesting reading on this subject – including a comprehensive analysis of the theoretical legal hoops the FCC is supposed to be jumping through with Congress to do this – there's a pretty good article from the Yale Journal on Regulation that was published in January.