2017 Annual Report | Gannett Co., Inc. | Gannett Co., 2017 Annual Report 2017 Annual Report | Gannett Co., Inc. | Gannett Co., 2017 Annual Report Gannett Co., Inc. 7950 Jones Branch Dr. McLean, VA 22107 gannett.com SHAREHOLDER SERVICES GANNETT STOCK Gannett Co., Inc. shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange with the FINANCE symbol GCI. The company’s transfer agent and registrar is Equiniti Trust Ali Engel Company. General inquiries and requests for enrollment materials for the Senior Vice President, programs described below should be directed to EQ Shareowner Services, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer P.O. Box 64854, St. Paul, MN 55164-0854, by telephone at 800-778-3299, or at shareownersonline.com. MEDIA RELATIONS Amber Allman ANNUAL MEETING Vice President, Corporate Events and Communications The annual meeting of shareholders will be held at 10 a.m. (ET), Tuesday, May 8, 2018, at Gannett headquarters. THIS REPORT WAS WRITTEN AND PRODUCED BY CORPORATE GOVERNANCE EMPLOYEES OF GANNETT. We have posted on our web site (www.gannett.com) our principles of corporate Printing governance, ethics policy and the charters for the audit, transformation, Action Printing, Fond du Lac, WI nominating and public responsibility, and executive compensation committees of our board of directors, and we intend to post updates to these corporate Printed on recycled paper. governance materials promptly if any changes (including through any amendments or waivers of the ethics policy) are made. This site also provides access to our annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and Photo Credits current reports on Form 8-K as filed with the SEC. Our chief executive officer and Cover: Jack Gruber, USA TODAY; Kris our chief financial officer have delivered, and we have filed with our 2017 Form Wartelle, The Daily Advertiser; Rodney 10-K, all certifications required by the rules of the SEC. Complete copies of our White, Register Media; Amber Hunt/ corporate governance materials and our Form 10-K may be obtained by writing Michael Nyerges, The Cincinnati our Secretary at our corporate headquarters. Enquirer; Nick Ling, Lansing State Journal; Grateful Ventures Page 2: Michael Chow, The Arizona FOR MORE INFORMATION Republic; Michael Zamora, The Des Moines Register; John Froelich, Special News and information about Gannett is available at www.gannett.com. Quarterly to the Detroit Free Press earnings information will be available in May, August and November 2018. Shareholders who wish to contact the company directly about their Gannett This report was printed using stock should call Shareholder Services at Gannett headquarters, 703-854-6960. soy-based inks. The entire report contains 10 percent total recovered GANNETT HEADQUARTERS fiber/all post-consumer waste. 7950 Jones Branch Drive McLean, VA 22107 TABLE OF CONTENTS 703-854-6000 01 | Company Profile INVESTOR RELATIONS 02 | Letter to Shareholders Stacy Cunningham Vice President, Financial Planning & Investor Relations 04 | Board of Directors [email protected] 703-854-3168 COMPANY PROFILE Gannett is an innovative, digitally focused media digital circulation, according to the Alliance for and marketing solutions company committed Audited Media’s December 2017 Quarterly Data to empowering communities to connect, act Report, with a total daily circulation of almost and thrive. 3.1 million, which includes daily print, digital replica, digital non-replica and branded editions. Gannett’s consumer brands include USA TODAY At our local media organizations, average daily NETWORK’s award-winning portfolio of media print readership is more than 11 million on Sunday brands such as the iconic USA TODAY and more and five million Monday through Saturday, while than 100 local media organizations in 34 states and the digital audience averages 43 million unique Guam, as well as niche content brands such as For visitors per month. The Win (FTW) and Grateful. In the U.K., Newsquest is a publishing and digital With an unmatched local-to-national reach, leader with more than 160 local media brands and Gannett’s USA TODAY NETWORK touches the a network of web sites that attracts over 26 million lives of more than 117 million people monthly unique visitors monthly. with trusted, award-winning content, consumer experiences and membership benefits, and Gannett’s diverse sales force, unique industry advertiser products and services. The company’s scale, and broad portfolio of print and digital innovative video network delivers best-in-class products enable the company to successfully tailor video content and continues the development campaigns to the individual needs of many levels of new storytelling offerings using virtual reality of advertisers from small, locally-owned merchants technologies and drones. Overall, the network to large, complex businesses. typically ranks among the top three in total Through Gannett’s marketing solutions audience in comScore’s news and information organization, the company has strong relationships category and, of the total U.S. digital millennial with tens of thousands of businesses due to audience (18-34), 54% access content of the USA our large local and national sales forces and TODAY NETWORK. a robust advertising and marketing solutions USA TODAY itself has been a cornerstone of the product suite, including from ReachLocal – which national news landscape for more than three serves as our local markets’ digital marketing decades. There have been more than 24.5 million services provider. ReachLocal’s digital marketing downloads of USA TODAY’s award-winning app on solutions comprise products and solutions in three mobile devices and 4.5 million downloads of apps categories: digital advertising, web presence and associated with our local media organizations. software-as-a-service (“SaaS”). SweetIQ, which The USA TODAY local edition is included as an is part of ReachLocal, is a provider of location insert each day in 35 of the company’s local daily and reputation management SaaS solutions that publications and includes News, Money and Life enable businesses to manage their location data content, while sports coverage is incorporated and measure consumer engagement. into local sports sections. USA TODAY remains the nation’s No. 1 newspaper in consolidated print and LETTER TO SHAREHOLDERS DEAR SHAREHOLDERS: services for our thousands of clients. Our consumer organization is focused on growing our audiences Gannett made great headway in 2017 - fueled by our and deepening engagement, in part by expanding strategy and our talented employees’ hard work. We our spectrum of content beyond traditional news. look forward to making even more progress in the years ahead. Some of our key strategic and financial As we navigate our way through an ever-evolving highlights include: digital media environment, we continue to grow our successes both with our marketing solutions efforts • Financially, our revenues and profit were steady. and on the consumer side. We achieved revenues of $3.1 billion, an increase of 3.2% over 2016 and flat adjusted EBITDA, despite continued secular pressure in print advertising and On the marketing solutions side... circulation. We are making good progress with our marketing • Digital revenues continued to grow, reaching nearly solutions offerings, strengthening relationships 32% of total revenue, up from 26% a year ago, with our business clients, including further growing driven by the full-year impact of the ReachLocal our digital marketing services through ReachLocal. acquisition and growth in digital advertising Part of our strategy is to increase client spending by revenues, especially programmatic. cross selling and encouraging clients to use multiple • Our acquisition of SweetIQ was an important products out of ReachLocal’s robust portfolio including milestone for us. SweetIQ’s strong product offerings search, social, website development and location in local listings and reputation management services. strengthen the value we bring to multi-location and With its “client first” mindset, ReachLocal is achieving national clients. strong momentum in the North American market, • We are investing, too, in content diversification. In including strong results from the 3,500 local market 2017, we purchased a stake in Grateful, an online campaigns transferred onto the ReachLocal platform lifestyle content company, which expands our during the year. ReachLocal also received recognition content offerings beyond our traditional news from eight awards organizations, including earning audience, and continued leveraging our signature a Golden Bridge Award in the “New Products and digital video franchises like Humankind, Animalkind Services” category and an American Business Awards’ and SportsPulse across the network and social Stevie Award for best marketing campaign of the year. platforms. At the same time, our local markets enhanced their • All in all, we also returned approximately consultative sales approach by leveraging our entire $90 million to shareholders through dividends product suite, including print, digital display, digital and share repurchases. marketing services and branded content. We are attracting new clients and taking share in our markets by using our full-service digital agency go-to-market Our digital transformation continues across the strategy. Our national digital business, which runs organization as we execute on our mission to be across our entire USA TODAY NETWORK, continues to essential for consumers and businesses seeking post strong