Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Four Gannett TV Stations Place Among Top 10 Most Watched Stations in the Country for Winter Olympics


McLEAN, VA -- Four local Gannett NBC affiliate stations were among the Top 10 most watched TV stations for the first four days of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. KUSA-TV in Denver ranked second; KARE-TV in Minneapolis-St. Paul was fifth; KSDK-TV in St. Louis placed seventh; and WKYC-TV in Cleveland was ninth. Gannett stations also took 3 of the top 5 spots in the 25 largest television markets -- KUSA was ranked first, KARE third and KSDK fourth.

"We congratulate all our local NBC affiliates for successfully launching these Olympics. The high viewing is a clear result of unique content from NBC matched to strong local brands," says Dave Lougee, president of Gannett Broadcasting. "The Winter Olympics are off to a tremendous start from the most watched opening ceremony ever for a non-U.S. Winter Olympics (up 35% over the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy), to great weekend ratings (Saturday night was more highly viewed than any single night of Torino coverage) to higher ratings for our NBC stations compared to 2006."

In addition, the resources of USA TODAY, USATODAY.com, USA WEEKEND and more than 80 local daily newspapers are being shared across Gannett to provide unprecedented content for local consumers.

Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI) is an international news and information company operating on multiple platforms including the Internet, mobile, newspapers, magazines and TV stations. Gannett is an Internet leader with hundreds of newspaper and TV Web sites; CareerBuilder.com, the nation's top employment site; USATODAY.com; and more than 80 local MomsLikeMe.com sites. Gannett publishes 84 daily U.S. newspapers, including USA TODAY, the nation's largest-selling daily newspaper, and more than 650 magazines and other non-dailies including USA WEEKEND. Gannett also operates 23 television stations in 19 U.S. markets. Gannett subsidiary Newsquest is the United Kingdom's second largest regional newspaper company with 17 daily paid-for titles, more than 200 weekly newspapers, magazines and trade publications, and a network of Web sites.