Tegna Inc.

Tegna Inc. (stylized in all caps as TEGNA) is an American publicly traded broadcast, digital media and marketing services company headquartered in Tysons, Virginia. It was created on June 29, 2015, when the Gannett Company split into two publicly traded companies. Tegna comprised the more profitable broadcast television and digital media divisions of the old Gannett, while Gannett's publishing interests were spun off as a "new" company that retained the Gannett name. Tegna owns or operates 68 television stations in 54 markets, and holds properties in digital media.

In terms of audience reach, Tegna is the largest group owner of NBC-affiliated stations, ahead of Hearst Television and Sinclair Broadcast Group, and the fourth-largest group owner of ABC affiliates, behind Hearst, the E. W. Scripps Company, and Sinclair. Tegna also owns two digital multicast networks (True Crime Network, Quest).

In June 2015, Gannett spun off its broadcasting division. Robert Dickey – who led Gannett's newspaper group – would continue as CEO of the company as a sole newspaper publisher, leaving the former broadcasting and digital operations under the leadership of Gracia Martore. In a statement, she explained that the split plans were "significant next steps in our ongoing initiatives to increase shareholder value by building scale, increasing cash flow, sharpening management focus, and strengthening all of our businesses to compete effectively in today's increasingly digital landscape". Additionally, the company announced that it would buy out the remainder of Classified Ventures (a joint venture between Tegna and several other media companies) for $1.8 billion, giving it full ownership of properties such as Cars.com.

As part of the separation, the company announced that the broadcasting and digital company would be named Tegna—a partial anagram of "Gannett". The spin-out was structured so that "old" Gannett changed its name to Tegna, Inc., then spun off its newspaper holdings into a "new" Gannett. The split was completed on June 29, 2015. Tegna retained "old" Gannett's stock price history, though it trades under a new ticker symbol, TGNA. The "new" Gannett inherited old Gannett's longtime ticker symbol, GCI. The two companies, however, continued to share a headquarters complex.

Tegna also retained G/O Digital, a digital marketing services brand that it launched in August 2013, and the 20 broadcast stations it acquired from Belo Corporation in December 2013 and the six stations it acquired from London Broadcasting Company in July 2014.

In September 2016, Tegna announced plans to spin off Cars.com to create two independent publicly traded companies. Tegna shareholders approved an initial public offering of Cars.com as a publicly traded spin-off in May 2017. Shortly after, Tegna completed the spin-off of Cars.com, which now trades under a new ticker symbol, CARS. Upon the completion of the spin-off, Dave Lougee, president of Tegna Media, was named president and CEO of Tegna and joined the company's board of directors. Gracia Martore, president and CEO of Tegna, retired and stepped down from the board.

Prior to the company's completion of the spin-off of Cars.com, it was reported by DealReporter that Nexstar Media Group may be considering a bid to acquire Tegna. In June 2017, Tegna announced it had entered into a definitive agreement, together with the other owners of CareerBuilder, to sell CareerBuilder to an investor group led by investments funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Global Management and the board of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.

Tegna and Cooper Media, parent corporation of the Justice Network, announced on November 7, 2017, a new multicast network, Quest. Tegna would be the charter station group as such would receive a minority stake in the network, which launched in January 2018. The range of programming on the network would be engineering and science, human achievements, military history and natural history.