Gannett Co. Inc. is an American mass media holding company based in McClean, Virginia, which operates in newspaper publishing and is one of the largest publishers in the U.S. according to their total daily circulation. The company is best known as the parent company of USA TODAY and local papers across 46 states, Guam, and the United Kingdom. The company was founded in 1906 by Frank Gannett and his associates who ‘bought a half interest in the Elmira Gazette’ in New York. While Gannett continued to expand the business to other cities in the state of New York, he kept the purpose being that ‘a newspaper best serves its community if its publisher, editor, and employees are locally oriented and understand the community and its people.’
According to Owler, Gannett’s major competitors include Hearst, McClatchy, Egmont, Meredith, Condé Nast, News Corp. Inc., IAC, Vox Media, AOL., and BuzzFeed. Focusing on the top three competitors, Gannett falls behind Hearst as the company, founded in 1887 in New York, ‘generates $8.7 billion more in revenue than Gannett.’ In comparison to McClatchy, founded in 1857 in Sacramento, California, the publishing company has ‘10,200 fewer employees’ than Gannett. Lastly, Egmont, founded in 1902 in Europe, ‘generates 67 % of Gannett’s revenue’ with 7,100 fewer employees. Overall, Gannett is competitive amongst its rivals, however, according to NiemanLab the ‘largest local news company’ has not put in place a successful vision for the new year. Since Gannett and Gatehouse Media merged at the end of 2019, they have become the largest publishing company in the U.S. One professor adds that ‘from a media economics perspective, more competition is always better,’ while one long-time reader from New York says, ‘both products get stronger because now [they] are going to be able to share those resources.’ There is still much competition from digital media and emerging online sources.
The resources and products that Gannett offers range from mass production of national newspapers to local papers to digital publications and networks for advertising. According to Gannett Digital, there is a wide range of services offered to maximize ads which include display banners, context, and geographic targeting, video streaming, and mobile. However, the most important product is USA TODAY with its national circulation.
With regard to finances, the 10-K filing shows that total revenue has increased in the last two years from 2017 to 2019 by 39 % with the latest report stating $1.87 million for the consolidated total. On the contrary, recent findings showcase that the company’s finances are in deep waters due to the recent merger with New Media Investment Group is the parent company of GateHouse media. As the total revenue went down by 9.7 % due to ‘print revenue declines’ and the restructuring and transaction costs have caused a ‘net loss of $115.7 million for the quarter,’ the management is optimistic. The number of local digital subscriptions have increased by 25.3% for local publications.’ All in all, these online subscriptions are proving to be critical in the success of Gannett in its new megamerger because print is in decline.
As print publication continues to bleed money, the challenge Gannett faces today is moving online. USA TODAY continues to be free of subscriptions online due to its heavy reliance on ads which attracts readers to its site and increases the competition with publications that require paid subscriptions. What makes Gannett stand out is its persistence to create a ‘local to national’ platform that serves everyone in the states. According to the Columbia Journalism Review, ‘the national-local model’ is able to generate resources for better local news reporting and also attract national advertisers to build the circulation of the company’s local papers which ‘could even threaten national rivals WSJ and the Times.’