Here's the question that was on everyone's mind

Busy CEOs like Gracia Martore are rarely available for interviews. So, Wall Street stock analysts squeeze as much as they can out of the telephone conferences held when quarterly earnings are released.

GCI held one Monday after the second-quarter earnings report. And one analyst, Craig Huber, asked a question on everyone's mind:

Now that the company was bulking up on TV stations with the purchase of Belo, would GCI's board of directors follow News Corp., Tribune Co., and others by spinning off its newspapers into a separate company?

That would be a huge deal -- one that Martore would not likely discuss with much candor. Still, sometimes a CEO can inadvertently signal a company's intentions. Unfortunately, I don't think Martore's reply did any of that. She was ready for the question, and might have even read from a script in her response.

What she said
According to Seeking Alpha's transcript:

"I think most of the focus right at the moment is the successful integration of the terrific new acquisition, Belo Corp. That will take some time and energy and opportunity to realize the unique synergies that we bring to the table vis-à-vis that transaction. But at the same time, as we've said, we have a lot of flexibility in our balance sheet to do some other things, so we'll also focus on other opportunities. Gannett is committed to increasing shareholder value in the medium to long term. We always, at the board level, are looking every time we meet and in between meetings, we are looking at opportunities to increase shareholder value. We never rule anything out, but our focus right now is a transaction that has created a lot of value for the company and will create even more into the future. So we're focused on that in the short term, to have a successful integration."

I've listened to more than a dozen of these conference calls over the five-plus years I've been keeping this blog. Martore's response to questions like this is now boilerplate: We never say never. However, in whatever we do, you can count on Gannett to maintain the strong financial discipline we've always offered our shareholders.

None of that means there isn't something going on behind the scenes, of course. She's left herself lots of wiggle room.

Consider this example
In April, as she convened the first-quarter conference call with analysts, Martore and her team were just four days away from presenting a written offer of $1.5 billion in cash for Belo's 20 stations. In fact, she'd been in talks with her Belo counterpart since last summer, and had signed a written confidentiality agreement in November to enter serious negotiations.

So what did Martore tell analyst Michael Kupinski during that conference, after he asked if GCI was shopping for more TV stations?

Here's her reply, according to the transcript: "More scale and a bigger footprint matters in the broadcast arena. . . . We have very, very good scale now, but improving on that scale could only be a positive going forward. But as always, we would be incredibly disciplined in what we would look at and what multiple we would pay."

Ultimately, the deal was announced June 13.

Nothing's illegal here
Regulators at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission don't require companies to disclose inside information in real time. Businesses have many legitimate reasons to keep information confidential from competitors to protect trade secrets, new products under development, or pending deals like the one for Belo.

I don't know whether GCI is seriously considering a spinoff of its newspapers. But as you weigh Martore's fresh remarks on the subject, keep the Belo example in mind.

Earlier: live coverage of the Q2 conference call.