ANNUAL REPORT 2017 NEW MEDIA OVERVIEW New Media supports small to mid-sized communities by providing locally-focused 5+ MILLION print and digital content to its consumers SMALL & MEDIUM BUSINESSES IN OUR MARKETS and premier marketing and technology solutions for our small and medium business (SMB) partners PORTFOLIO OVERVIEW 100% OPERATE IN OVER REACH OVER 22 OF OUR DAILY NEWSPAPERS HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED FOR MORE THAN 50 YEARS 565 MARKETS MILLION PEOPLE ACROSS 38 STATES ON A WEEKLY BASIS 600+ 142 TOTAL COMMUNITY DAILY PUBLICATIONS NEWSPAPERS SMB SOLUTIONS PROVIDER SERVE 215K & SMALL & MEDIUM 41M 290M BUSINESSES VISITORS PAGE VIEWS 1,330+ IN-MARKET SALES REPRESENTATIVES 1.9M PAID CIRCULATION All figures are as of December 31, 2017. SUCCESSFUL EXECUTION OF OUR STRATEGY Diversified away from Traditional Print revenue(1) which 5 was 56% of total revenue in FY 2013 to 44% of total 01. revenue in FY 2017 Quarterly Dividend ORGANIC 4 Cumulative Dividend 3 Growth of UpCurve(2) revenue from $6.4 million in FY GROWTH 2013 to $71.3 million in FY 2017 2 1 Diversify revenue base to Launched GateHouse Live in 2015 which more than 0 doubled its revenue this year to $15.7 million through create organic revenue and Q2 2014Q3 2014Q3 2014Q1 2015Q2 2015Q3 2015Q4 2015Q1 2016Q2 2016Q3 2016Q4 2016Q1 2017Q2 2017Q3 2017Q4 2017 cash flow growth hosting 235 community live events Completed $876.1 million of acquisitions as of the end of 2017(3) 02. ACQUISITIONS Purchase price has averaged 4.0x the seller’s LTM As Adjusted EBITDA(4) Average unlevered yield of 23%(5) and average levered yield Out of favor and fragmented of 28%(6) industry has created attractive pricing for assets 2017 dividends of $1.44 per common share $4.96 $4.59 $0.37 $4.22 $0.37 $3.87 03. $0.35 $3.52 $0.35 $3.17 $0.35 $2.82 PAY $0.35 $2.49 $0.33 $2.16 $0.33 $1.83 DIVIDEND $0.33 $1.50 $0.33 $1.17 $0.33 $0.84 $0.54 $0.33 $0.27 $0.30 Return a meaningful $0.27 $0.27 portion of free cash flow Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 to shareholders ’14 ’14 ’14 ’15 ’15 ’15 ’15 ’16 ’16 ’16 ’16 ’17 ’17 ’17 ’17 (1) Traditional Print revenue is defined as Local, Classified, and Preprints. (6) Levered yield is calculated using the unlevered yield calculation described in footnote 5, (2) UpCurve was reported as Propel Marketing in the Company's Q4 and FY 2013 Quarterly and also subtracting debt payments for funding acquisitions from LTM As Adjusted Supplement. EBITDA, and dividing the total into the cash portion of the total purchase price. The (3) Purchase price excludes working capital, except for the acquisitions of the Columbus calculation uses the same assumptions as footnote 5, debt payments for funding Dispatch and Erie Times-News. acquisitions of $14.7 million (assuming a 7.25% rate on $203 million of debt) and the (4) Represents total purchase price to average LTM As Adjusted EBITDA for 22 closed local cash portion of the total purchase price of $661.2 million. media acquisitions. (5) Unlevered yield is calculated by subtracting capex and cash taxes from LTM As Adjusted EBITDA, and dividing the total into the total purchase price of the 22 closed local media acquisitions of $864.2 million. The calculation assumes at acquisition LTM As Adjusted EBITDA of $213.7 million, capex of 1% of revenue (assuming a 15% EBITDA margin), and cash taxes of $0. NEW MEDIA INVESTMENT GROUP // 01 DEAR FELLOW SHAREHOLDERS 2017 was a great year for New Media Investment Group Inc. (“New Media,” “we,” “our,” or the “Company”) across all three areas of our stated strategy—growing organic revenue and cash flow, driving inorganic growth through strategic and accretive acquisitions, and returning a meaningful portion of cash to shareholders in the form of a dividend. Our revenue continues to grow, ending the year at $1.3bn, which was an increase of 6.9% over 2016. On an organic same store basis, the full year was down 5.9%; however, the fourth quarter was down 5.6%, an improvement of 80bps from the third quarter of 2017. We completed five local media acquisitions this year for a total of $161.9 million, all within our stated acquisition range of 3.5–4.5x the seller’s LTM As Adjusted EBITDA. And we declared $1.44 per share in dividends, increasing the amount of the dividend in Q3 for the fourth time since our spin-off. NEW MEDIA CONTINUES TO INVEST INTO OUR PLATFORM TO CREATE ORGANIC GROWTH AND DIVERSIFY OUR REVENUE BASE AWAY FROM TRADITIONAL PRINT ADVERTISING. We are pleased with how the year closed and optimistic ORGANIC REVENUE AND CASH FLOW GROWTH about our future both near and long term, despite facing New Media continues to invest into our platform to increased challenges from the traditional advertising create organic growth and diversify our revenue base business and several natural disasters. Our Company away from traditional print advertising. By the fourth remains the largest owner of daily newspapers in the quarter of 2017, 56% of our revenue was generated by United States with 142 daily newspapers as of the end our stable and growing revenue segments, as com- of 2017, the majority of which have been published for pared to 48% at the end of 2014. The three largest more than 100 years. The content our local media drivers for this change are the investments in growth brands provide remains the cornerstones of their com- within UpCurve and GateHouse Live as well as the munities and provides the hyper-local news that our continued focus on providing unique local content to consumers and businesses cannot get anywhere else. grow our consumer revenue. And our rebranded small and medium business (“SMB”) solutions provider, UpCurve, continued its strong growth UpCurve, formerly known as Propel Business Services, trajectory, helping us to serve approximately 215,000 continued to see notable growth in 2017 generating SMBs in our local communities and beyond. $71.3 million in revenue, an increase of 34.5% over 2016. UpCurve is focused on helping SMBs solve their most common and pressing challenges and is comprised of two main product offerings, digital marketing services branded as ThriveHive and cloud-based business 02 // ANNUAL REPORT 2017 80BPS 34.5% $1.42 IMPROVEMENT IN ORGANIC SAME STORE REVENUE FROM GROWTH IN UPCURVE IN 2017 DIVIDENDS PAID Q3 2017 REVENUE FROM 2016 TO 2017 solutions branded as UpCurve Cloud. With over 5 mil- a total of 79 publications to our portfolio that are very lion SMBs in our markets, we are very excited about strong, with well-known editors and numerous acco- the opportunity we have for this business to further lades for their high quality journalism. This deal brought strengthen and expand. our total acquisitions since inception to over $875 mil- lion. The Morris transaction is also a great example of GateHouse Live saw its revenues more than double to one that was cultivated over several years, building $15.7 million in 2017. This is our local events division, trust with the family that New Media would be the which specializes in delivering world-class events for appropriate steward of their portfolio into the future. the media industry and the communities they serve. We continue to actively cultivate relationships within Though only launched in 2015, we hosted 235 events in the industry and see a very strong pipeline of acquisi- our communities in 2017, ranging from our “Best of tion opportunities for 2018. Preps” high school sports awards banquets to our var- ied expos and festivals. The demand within our com- munities for these events remains very strong and we RETURN OF CAPITAL TO SHAREHOLDERS IN THE are excited to further roll out both current and new FORM OF A DIVIDEND events across our markets in 2018. New Media declared a total of $1.44 per share in divi- dends for 2017, which included an increase in Q3 2017 While growing new revenue streams is a major focus to $0.37 per share. Since our spin-off, the Company for New Media, our continued commitment to providing has returned $4.96 in cumulative dividends and grown our communities with high quality, comprehensive, the dividend 37%. 2017 was also a great year for New hyper-local news is the cornerstone to our success. Media’s stock performance, which significantly outper- This unique content has kept our products relevant and formed its peers, with a one-year total return of 13.8% valuable to the consumers in our markets and can be versus our peer group average decline of 17.2%.(1) seen in our stable circulation revenue, which remains our largest single revenue line item. In 2017, our print and digital products reached over 22 million consumers each 2018 AND BEYOND week nationwide and we saw our digital only subscriber New Media is excited for the future and optimistic about base grow 51.6% to over 78,000 subscribers. successfully executing on our strategy. Further, we believe successful execution of our strategy will lead to INORGANIC GROWTH THROUGH STRATEGIC AND increased shareholder returns. Our growing business ACCRETIVE ACQUISITIONS segments continue to drive us toward overall topline organic revenue growth and we see further attractive New Media expanded our footprint this year through acquisition opportunities in the pipeline. We remain five local media acquisitions that are an ideal fit for our committed to creating shareholder value and allocating platform.