You are viewing the archive: “Gannett”

R.I.P. Al Neuharth

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Friday April 19, 2013 @ 4:30pm PDTTags: Al Neuharth, Gannett

Al Neuharth, former Gannett chairman and founder of USA Today, died today from complications of a fall at his home in Cocoa Beach, FL. He was 89. Neuharth’s death was reported by USA Today and the Newseum, which he also founded. Neuharth became president of Gannett in 1970 and CEO three years later. During his more than 15 years at the helm, Neuharth built Gannett into one of the largest American media companies with annual revenues increasing from $200 million to more than $3 billion. He founded USA Today in 1982, while president of Gannett newspaper group. The colorful, easy-to-read newspaper was at first dismissed, some deriding it as “McPaper”, but it went on to become the nation’s second-largest daily newspaper. Neuharth retired from Gannett in 1989.

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DirecTV And Gannett Reach Last Minute Retransmission Agreement

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Saturday December 1, 2012 @ 7:54am PSTTags: DirecTV, Gannett

Gannett offers no details, except that it has “reached an agreement” that will enable DirecTV to continue retransmitting signals from its 23 television stations. Gannett had warned viewers that a “signal disruption” was possible if the companies remained … Read More »

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Will Gannett’s TV Stations Go Dark On DirecTV?

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Thursday November 29, 2012 @ 12:20pm PSTTags: DirecTV, Gannett, Retransmission Consent Fees

Here we go again. The biggest independent distributor of NBC programming has begun to air crawls and announcements warning DirecTV subscribers of “the possibility of a signal disruption” after November 30 when the programming carriage agreement for its 23 stations expires. … Read More »

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Gannett Beats Q3 Earnings Estimates With Help From Olympics And Political Ads

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Monday October 15, 2012 @ 5:49am PDTTags: Gannett

Television stations were the star performers for Gannett, helping to overcome weak results in its core newspaper business to edge past Wall Street’s expectations for Q3. The company reported net income of $148.6M, up 32.9% vs the period last … Read More »

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Dish Network And Gannett Reach Retransmission Agreement

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Monday October 8, 2012 @ 7:05am PDTTags: Big Deals TV, Dish Network, Gannett

UPDATE, 7:10 AM: The announcement, without details, hit literally a minute after I posted the story below about the companies’ decision to extend their negotiations. The companies simply say that they “have reached an agreement regarding Dish Network’s continued retransmission of Gannett stations.” 

PREVIOUS, 7:05 AM: The old contract that enabled Dish Network to offer programming from Gannett stations in 19 markets expired at midnight. But Dish customers continue to see them: The companies said this morning that “both sides have agreed to extend the deadline by several hours” to work out a new agreement. Dish said on Friday that it had agreed to a 200% increase in the fees it pays to carry stations controlled by Gannett. The increase is “the same as our closest direct competitor” — presumably DirecTV. Read More »

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Gannett Beats Q2 Earnings Forecasts With Help From Political TV Ads

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Monday July 16, 2012 @ 5:48am PDTTags: Gannett

Gannett typically kicks off the earnings season for media companies. And while the story it tells this morning for Q2 is far from cheery — revenues and profits are down for the No. 1 newspaper publisher — it’s also not as bad as Wall Street feared. The company reported net income of $135.6M, down 18.1% vs the period last year, on revenues of $1.31B, -2.1%. The revenue figure is slightly short of the $1.32B analysts projected. But earnings per share, excluding special items for this year and last year, came in at 56 cents, ahead of the consensus forecast of 52 cents. Gannett’s broadcasting unit, which includes 23 TV stations, provided most of the good news. Its revenues were up 11.4% to $205.4M — including a $9M boost from political ads. But even if you factor out political spots, ad sales would have been up 6.2% with strong demand from auto makers, the company says. Gannett forecasts that ad sales in Q3 will be up “in the low-thirties… benefiting from the Summer Olympic Read More »

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Media Stocks Caught In Downdraft As Fears Of European Default Grow

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Thursday December 8, 2011 @ 3:54pm PSTTags: AOL, Barnes & Noble, Cablevision, CBS, Coinstar, Comcast, Crown Media, DirecTV, Dish Network, Disney, E.W. Scripps, Gannett, Live Nation, Madison Square Garden Co, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, McClatchy, News Corp, Redbox, Sirius XM, Sony, The New York Times Company, Time Warner, TiVo, Verizon, Viacom

The trading day ended with a thud. The benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 wound up -2.1% as word spread that Germany might balk at a proposal to help bail out debt-laden members of the European Union including Greece and … Read More »

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TV Station Groups Unite To Offer Social Networking And Info To Mobile Devices

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Tuesday November 15, 2011 @ 8:32am PSTTags: Belo Corp, E.W. Scripps, Gannett, Media General, Meredith Corp.

The partnership involves big names in local TV including Belo, Cox, E.W. Scripps, Gannett, Hearst, and Media General. They want to enhance TV viewing beginning in early 2012 by offering an app that enables Apple or Android mobile devices to automatically detect what you’re watching. The stations then would feed additional info about the shows — including local and syndicated fare — as well as opportunities to connect with other viewers. Yes, they’ll also send ads to your device. Here’s how they describe the free service, to be called ConnecTV:

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Media Stocks Off To Rough Start Amid New Doubts About Greek Bailout

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Tuesday November 1, 2011 @ 9:24am PDTTags: CBS, Comcast, Disney, Entercom, Gannett, IMAX, Lionsgate, News Corp, Pandora, Regal, Sony, Time Warner, Time Warner Cable, Viacom, Wall Street

Everyone’s reacting today to Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou’s startling decision to hold a referendum on the deal cut last week to save his country’s economy. The agreement is unpopular — lenders would wipe out about half of Greece’s debt … Read More »

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Gannett Shares -8.5% In Mid-day Trading Following Dreary 3Q Report

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Monday October 17, 2011 @ 5:43am PDTTags: Gannett

The results were ugly, but no worse than analysts already forecast. Net income attributable to Gannett came in at $99.8M, down 1.6% vs last year’s 3Q, on revenues of $1.26B, down 3.5%. Excluding special one-time charges, earnings came in at … Read More »

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Media Stocks -5.4% As Fresh Data Suggest The Economy Continues To Weaken

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Thursday August 18, 2011 @ 12:13pm PDTTags: Amazon, Cablevision, CBS, Cinedigm, Coinstar, Comcast, Discovery Communications, Disney, Entercom, Gannett, IMAX, LIN TV, Lionsgate, Live Nation Entertainment, McClatchy, McGraw-Hill, Netflix, News Corp, Pandora Media, Radio One, Scripps Networks Interactive, Sinclair Broadcasting, Sony, Stock Market, Time Warner, TiVo, Viacom, Washington Post

The bears are back. After a relatively calm week, stocks prices across the board — including in media — are tanking today following reports that point to rising unemployment and inflation, and weakness in manufacturing. An hour before … Read More »

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UPDATE: Media Stocks Down, But With Exceptions, As Overseas Debt Fears Grow

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Wednesday August 10, 2011 @ 8:59am PDTTags: AOL, Disney, E.W. Scripps, Gannett, LIN TV, Lionsgate, Live Nation, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, NASDAQ, New York Stock Exchange, Rovi, Standard & Poor's, The New York Times, Time Warner Cable, Westwood One

UPDATE 4:10 PM: The markets couldn’t sustain an early afternoon rally amid concerns that France might lose its AAA debt rating and that Spain or Italy might default on payments. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell … Read More »

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Bounce TV Plays Ball With Gannett, Adds Atlanta To Roll Out

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Tuesday August 2, 2011 @ 7:05am PDTTags: Bounce TV, Gannett

ATLANTA (August 2, 2011) – Bounce TV (http://bouncetv.com), the first-ever over-the-air broadcast television network for African-Americans launching September 26, will be seen on Gannett Broadcasting’s WATL-TV in Atlanta, the second largest African-American television market in the country, it was announced today by Bounce TV Executive Vice President of Distribution Jeffrey Wolf. The agreement is Bounce TV’s first with Gannett. Bounce TV now has affiliation agreements with Gannett, Belo Corp., Nexstar Communications, LIN TV Corp. and Raycom Media. The Atlanta-based network expects to be available in at least 50% of the country by its launch.

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