New Media Announces Solid Third Quarter 2017 Results and Increases the Dividend to $0.

37 per
Common Share

NEW YORK, N.Y. October 26, 2017 – New Media Investment Group Inc. (“New Media” or the
“Company”, NYSE: NEWM) today reported its financial results for the third quarter ended September 24,
2017.

Third Quarter 2017 Financial Summary

 New Media declares a cash dividend of $0.37 per common share, an increase of 5.7% from the prior
quarter
 Total revenues of $317.2 million, up 3.4% to prior year on a reported basis, and down 6.4% to the
prior year on an organic same store basis, negatively impacted in September by the hurricanes in
Florida and Texas
 Digital revenue increased to $35.6 million, up 11.1% to prior year on a reported basis
 Net loss of $2.0 million, negatively impacted by $6.2 million of charges relating to the upsizing and
maturity date extension of our credit facility and consolidation of press equipment
 As Adjusted EBITDA of $37.1 million*, up 0.4% to prior year, inclusive of negative impact in
September of approximately $1 million due to the hurricanes
 Free Cash Flow of $27.3 million*, up 1.6% to prior year, inclusive of negative impact in September
of approximately $1 million due to the hurricanes

Third Quarter 2017 & Subsequent Business Highlights

 Closed the acquisition of Calkins Media on June 30, 2017 for $17.5 million
 Closed the acquisition of certain newspapers and related assets of Morris Publishing Group
(“Morris”) on October 2, 2017 for $120.0 million
 Entered into an agreement with ZipRecruiter, the fastest growing online employment marketplace, to
power the Company’s print and online recruitment pages across its 540 markets
 Closed on an amendment to our term loan extending the maturity date to July 14, 2022, increasing
the outstanding term loan by $20 million, and increasing the accordion availability to $80 million
 Liquidity, consisting of cash on the balance sheet and undrawn revolver, of $200.5 million as of
September 24, 2017; $120.0 million was deployed subsequent to the quarter for the Morris
transaction
 UpCurve, our SMB solutions provider, had revenue of $17.9 million, a 22.0% increase as compared
to prior year∆

Summary of Third Quarter 2017 Results

($ in million, except per share)
GAAP Reporting
Revenues $ 317.2
Operating income $ 11.5
Net (loss) $ (2.0)

Non-GAAP Reporting*
As Adjusted EBITDA $ 37.1
Free Cash Flow $ 27.3
$6.2M of charges relates to the $4.8M of loss on extinguishment of debt, $0.9M of debt related costs recorded to interest expense, and $0.5M related to print
consolidation that was recorded to the loss on sale or disposal of assets.
*For definitions and reconciliations of Non-GAAP Reporting measures, please refer to the Non-GAAP Financial Measures Note and reconciliations below.
∆ Comparison to prior year reported Propel Marketing revenue.
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“We are not satisfied with our third quarter financial results, despite some great accomplishments in the
quarter that continue to better position the Company for long term success,” said Michael E. Reed, New
Media President and CEO. “The tragic events resulting from the hurricanes in Florida and Texas did
negatively impact our third quarter results, however, this is short term and we do not expect any lingering
impact in the fourth quarter.”

“We have successfully deployed nearly $140 million in capital over the past few months with our
acquisitions of the family newspaper groups of Morris and Calkins. I am confident that we will get great
contributions going forward from both of these acquisitions. Importantly, both of these transactions were
accretive to cash flow on day one. We were pleased in the quarter to amend our credit facility, both upsizing
the amount and accordion availability, as well as extending the maturity date to July of 2022. In addition to
the $80 million of accordion availability, we closed the quarter with $200.5 million of cash on the balance
sheet and availability under the revolver, or $80 million in pro-forma liquidity after the purchase of Morris.”

“Another exciting event from the quarter was an agreement we entered into with ZipRecruiter, the fastest
growing online employment marketplace, to power our print and online recruitment pages. Subsequent to the
quarter, ZipRecruiter-powered pages launched across our 540 markets, reaching over 21 million U.S. readers
each week. Not only do our small and medium sized businesses now have access to a top recruitment
platform, but our community residents do as well. With this relationship, our local media businesses strive to
once again become the go-to employment marketplace for our communities. We can now offer a reach that
community businesses would not have had easy access to previously.”

Mr. Reed went on to say, “We saw great progress and growth within UpCurve, especially as it relates to our
UpCurve Cloud business. This is the business focused on bringing cloud-based products to small and
medium sized businesses in our communities that will help them grow faster, smarter and more efficiently.
Revenue is up 74.9% to prior year for this product line and we now fulfill over 91,000 SugarCRM and G-
Suite licenses. This is a major focus area for expansion in our UpCurve business as we are experiencing less
than 10% annual churn and seeing recurring revenue of over 65%. Across the entire UpCurve business,
revenue grew 22.0% from the prior year to $17.9 million.”

“Despite the challenges we encountered in the third quarter, we remain enthusiastic about the fourth quarter
and 2018. We continue to pursue innovative opportunities that make our products more relevant and valuable
to consumers and small businesses in our communities. Further, we continue to see an attractive pipeline of
acquisition opportunities that can expand or strengthen our existing business segments. As a result of our
confidence in the future, we were pleased to announce this morning that our board approved an increase to
our quarterly dividend, bringing it to $0.37 per common share. That marks the fourth consecutive year we
have been able to increase our dividend and a 37% increase from our initial dividend back in 2014.”

Third Quarter 2017 Financial Results

New Media recorded total revenues of $317.2 million for the quarter, up 3.4% to prior year and down 6.4%
on an organic same store basis. Our third quarter revenues were negatively impacted in September by the
hurricanes in both Florida and Texas. We expect our trends to improve again as we head into the fourth
quarter. Traditional Print Advertising decreased 14.0% to prior year on an organic same store basis,
reflecting the continued challenges we are experiencing in print advertising stemming primarily from the
struggle of the brick and mortar retail sector.

Digital revenue closed at $35.6 million, an increase of 11.1% to prior year. UpCurve generated $17.9
million in revenue, an increase of 22.0% to prior year and now comprises 50.4% of total digital revenue.

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Circulation revenue was down 1.5% to prior year on an organic same store basis. We view this performance
as an anomaly due to some shifting of resources into better growth opportunities during the quarter. We
expect circulation revenue trends to improve bringing the category back toward stable to modest growth.
Commercial Print, Distribution, and Events revenue increased 3.7% to prior year on an organic same store
basis.

Operating income was $11.5 million and Net loss was $2.0 million. Both were negatively impacted by
approximately $6.2 million of charges related to the upsizing and extension of our credit facility and
consolidation of press equipment.

As Adjusted EBITDA was $37.1 million, which is up 0.4% to prior year, and Free Cash Flow was $27.3
million, which is up 1.6% to prior year, both of which were negatively impacted in September by
approximately $1 million due to the hurricanes.

Third Quarter 2017 Dividend

New Media’s Board of Directors declared a third quarter 2017 cash dividend of $0.37 per share of common
stock. This represents an increase of 5.7% to the prior quarter. The dividend is payable on November 16,
2017 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on November 8, 2017.

The declaration and payment of any dividends are at the sole discretion of the Board of Directors, which may
decide to change the Company’s dividend policy at any time.

Additional Information
For additional information that management believes to be useful for investors, please refer to the
presentation posted on the Investor Relations section of New Media’s website, www.newmediainv.com and
the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K, which will be available on the Company’s website. Nothing
on our website is included or incorporated by reference herein.

Earnings Conference Call

New Media’s management will host a conference call on Thursday, October 26, 2017 at 10:00 A.M. Eastern
Time. A copy of the earnings release will be posted to the Investor Relations section of New Media’s
website, www.newmediainv.com.

All interested parties are welcome to participate on the live call. The conference call may be accessed by
dialing 1-855-319-1124 (from within the U.S.) or 1-703-563-6359 (from outside of the U.S.) ten minutes
prior to the scheduled start of the call; please reference “New Media Third Quarter Earnings Call” or access
code “73796612.”

A simultaneous webcast of the conference call will be available to the public on a listen-only basis
at www.newmediainv.com. Please allow extra time prior to the call to visit the website and download any
necessary software required to listen to the internet broadcast.

A telephonic replay of the conference call will also be available approximately three hours following the
call’s completion through 10:59 P.M. Eastern Time on Thursday, November 9, 2017 by dialing 1-855-859-
2056 (from within the U.S.) or 1-404-537-3406 (from outside of the U.S.); please reference access code
“73796612.”

About New Media Investment Group Inc.

New Media supports small to mid-size communities by providing locally-focused print and digital content to
its consumers and premier marketing and technology solutions for our small and medium businesses

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partners. The Company is one of the largest publishers of locally based print and online media in the United
States as measured by our 130 daily publications. As of September 24, 2017, the Company operates in 540
markets across 36 states. New Media’s portfolio of products, as of September 24, 2017, include over 640
community publications and 540 websites, serve more than 225,000 business advertising accounts, and
reaches over 21 million people on a weekly basis.

For more information regarding New Media and to be added to our email distribution list, please visit
www.newmediainv.com.

Same Store and Organic Same Store Revenues

Same store results take into account material acquisitions and divestitures of the Company by adjusting prior
year performance to include or exclude financial results as if the Company had owned or divested a business
for the comparable period. The results of several acquisitions (“tuck-in acquisitions”) were funded from the
Company’s available cash and are not considered material. Organic same store revenues are same store
revenues adjusted to remove non-material acquisitions and non-material divestitures, and to adjust for
Commercial Print revenues that are now intercompany.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

The Company strongly urges stockholders and other interested persons not to rely on any single financial
measure to evaluate its business. In addition, because Adjusted EBITDA, As Adjusted EBITDA, and Free
Cash Flow are not measures of financial performance under GAAP and are susceptible to varying
calculations, these non-GAAP measures, as presented in this press release, may differ from and may not be
comparable to similarly titled measures used by other companies.

Adjusted EBITDA, As Adjusted EBITDA, and Free Cash Flow

The Company defines Adjusted EBITDA as net income (loss) from continuing operations before income tax
expense (benefit), interest/financing expense, depreciation and amortization, and non-cash impairments. The
Company defines As Adjusted EBITDA as Adjusted EBITDA before transaction and project costs, merger
and acquisition related costs, integration and reorganization costs, gain/loss on sale or disposal of assets, non-
cash items such as non-cash compensation, and Adjusted EBITDA from non-wholly owned subsidiaries.
The Company defines Free Cash Flow as As Adjusted EBITDA less capital expenditures, cash taxes, interest
paid, and pension payments.

Management’s Use of Adjusted EBITDA, As Adjusted EBITDA, and Free Cash Flow
Adjusted EBITDA, As Adjusted EBITDA, and Free Cash Flow are not measures of financial performance
under GAAP and should not be considered in isolation or as alternatives to income from operations, net
income (loss), cash flow from continuing operating activities or any other measure of performance or
liquidity derived in accordance with GAAP. New Media’s management believes these non-GAAP measures,
as defined above, are useful to investors for the following reasons:

- Evaluating performance and identifying trends in day-to-day performance because the items excluded
have little or no significance on the Company’s day-to-day operations; and
- Providing assessments of controllable expenses that afford management the ability to make decisions
which are expected to facilitate meeting current financial goals as well as achieving optimal financial
performance.

We use Adjusted EBITDA, As Adjusted EBITDA, and Free Cash Flow as measures of our deployed revenue
generating assets between periods on a consistent basis. We believe As Adjusted EBITDA and Free Cash
Flow measure our financial performance and help identify operational factors that management can impact in

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the short term, mainly our operating cost structure and expenses. We exclude mergers and acquisition,
transaction, and project related costs such as diligence activities and new financing related costs because they
represent costs unrelated to the day-to-day operating performance of the business that management can
impact in the short term. We consider the loss on early extinguishment of debt to be financing related costs
associated with interest expense or amortization of financing fees, which by definition are excluded from
Adjusted EBITDA. Such charges are incidental to, but not reflective of our day-to-day operating
performance of the business that management can impact in the short term.

Forward-Looking Statements
Certain items in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the
Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding our ability to execute on
our operational strategy, hurricane related impacts, expected revenue trends and performance for Q4 and
beyond, including expectations for revenue growth, and our ability to continue to grow our dividend and
deliver shareholder returns, pursuing and completing future acquisitions and strategic opportunities, the
timing and availability of such opportunities, the ability to source and identify such opportunities and the
benefits associated with such opportunities, growing our digital business and revenues including UpCurve,
the expected benefits of our growth initiatives, including through recruitment and cloud products and
services, diversifying our revenue streams away from traditional print media, our ability to lower expenses
including by leveraging our scale, and our ability to grow As Adjusted EBITDA and Free Cash Flow. These
statements are based on management’s current expectations and beliefs and are subject to a number of risks
and uncertainties, such as continued declines in traditional revenue categories, economic conditions in the
markets in which we operate, including natural disasters and other factors affecting economic conditions in
general, competition from other media companies, the possibility of insufficient interest in our digital
business, technological developments in the media sector, an ability to source acquisition opportunities with
an attractive risk-adjusted return profile, inadequate diligence of acquisition targets, and difficulties
integrating and reducing expenses, including at our newly acquired businesses. These and other risks and
uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking
statements, many of which are beyond our control. The Company can give no assurance that its expectations
will be attained. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements
contained in this press release. For a discussion of some of the risks and important factors that could cause
actual results to differ from such forward-looking statements, see the risks and other factors detailed from
time to time in the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and other
filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Furthermore, new risks and uncertainties emerge
from time to time, and it is not possible for the Company to predict or assess the impact of every factor that
may cause its actual results to differ from those contained in any forward-looking statements. Such forward-
looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release. The Company expressly disclaims any
obligation to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements contained herein to
reflect any change in the Company's expectations with regard thereto or change in events, conditions or
circumstances on which any statement is based.

Contact:
Ashley Higgins, Investor Relations
ir@newmediainv.com
(212) 479-3160

Source: New Media Investment Group Inc.

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