I'm now live-blogging the Q2 analyst conference

CEO Gracia Martore and other top executives are discussing the just-released second-quarter financial statement. The 10 a.m. ET conference, lasting about an hour, is being webcast in listen-only mode for the general public. How to participate.

11:02 And we're done! GCI's stock is now down 3% to $25.56. Note: Later today, this conference's audio will be available for replay at Corporate's gannett.com website. Also later, I expect financial news site Seeking Alpha will publish a transcript; I'll post a link when it becomes available.

11:01 Martore and Harker are now trying to explain digital revenue growth in Digital Segment vs. company-wide to an analyst who can't read the statement properly.

10:57 We're in the final minutes of the conference. Q: What's status of CareerBuilder with GCI's partner Tribune Co.? Martore defers to Tribune. Ditto for Classified Ventures partnership.

10:54 Q: Interested in more TV stations? Any limitations because of regulatory rules? Martore says not just focused on investing in more broadcast, but any opportunity "at the right price."

10:47 Q: What about possibility of spinning off newspapers into their own division? Martore: focused on acquistion of Belo. GCI is committed to increasing shareholder value. "We always at the board level . . . are looking at opportunities. . . . We never rule anything out." [Hopkins: News Corp. and Tribune Co. are doing these spinoffs.]

10:46 Q: Taking out Newsquest, how would things have been with print advertising in Q2? Positive, Martore says.

10:43 First reference to royal baby! It's driving U.K. retail sales, says Martore.

10:40 Q: Advertising trends in July? Martore says broadcast has a tough comparable to Q3 in 2012. On U.S. Community Publishing, probably in line with Q2. Newsquest in the U.K. will improve, but they still have the drag on the currency side as British pound sterling is weak.

10:39 GCI stock is now down 3.3% to $25.50.

10:35 Q: Still expect 250,000-300,000 paying digital newspaper subs by year end? Martore: ended Q2 around 65,000. [Hopkins says: I don't see how they can hit even the 250K if they're only at 65K now.] Martore says the New York Times Co. has done a "fabulous job" with its paywalls. She's trying to shift attention to the number of existing GCI subscribers -- think it's 1.3 million -- who have activated their digital accounts.

10:33 Q: National advertising best in some time. What's going on? Martore credits USAT team in "really presenting the value USA Today brings in all platforms," plus value of print.

10:32 Q: What's the trend in TV advertising, including in Obamacare-related spending? Martore: Total TV revenues up in the mid-teens in Q3. Continued strength in auto. Corporate very focused on Obamacare reform ads. Broadcast President Dave Lougee says Obamacare will show up mostly in Q4.

10:29 Back to Martore. We're investing for the future, don't expect quick turnaround, etc. Now to the Q&A portion.

10:24 Relaunch of top 30 newspaper markets' digital offerings by year end. Unless I'm mistaken, that means GCI will miss its deadline of getting all done by the end of 2013.

10:17 Here's Harker. She's reading from a script that also highlights key figures from the financial statement. GCI stock is now down 2.6%, to $25.67. That's not bad, considering the company missed Wall Street's revenue forecast by $30 million.

10:12 Revenue in Digital Marketing Services is up 90%, albeit it off a small base. No dollar amounts given. The unit is expected to generate $275 million to $350 million in new revenue, also by 2015.

10:09 Martore talks about trends in the USA Today Sports Media Group. So far, I'm not hearing any specific dollar amounts as the unit aims for $300 million in promised new revenue by 2015.

10:03 And we're off. Here's Martore. She's recapping the financial statement. CFO Victoria Harker will follow. The most interesting part of the conference, as always, will be the question-and-answer session near the halfway mark.

9:53 I often wonder who chooses the background music we hear as we wait for the conference to begin. Right now, it's classical.

9:48 a.m. We're waiting for the conference to begin in about 10 minutes. In early trading, GCI's stock is down 4.3% to $25.22.

Earlier: Questions employees should ask during today's Town Hall meeting.

Related: Across Corporate America, earnings calls take on a whiff of show biz, according to The Wall Street Journal.

What's the future of GCI's digital growth engine?

As Tribune Co. draws closer to a possible sale of its newspapers and related properties, a newly published report offers a glimpse at the impact on Gannett and its crucial investments in digital assets it co-owns with Tribune.

Those assets are Classified Ventures and CareerBuilder. In particular, the employment site is key because it's expected to lead GCI's digital revenue growth this year and perhaps beyond.

Tribune owns 28% of Classified Ventures, which includes Cars.com and Apartments.com -- two leading classified advertising sites. And it owns 31% of CareerBuilder. Those are among Tribune's most valuable assets, worth as much as $700 million, according to last night's report in The Wall Street Journal. (Tribune's eight newspapers, including The Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, are worth perhaps $1 billion, according to the WSJ.)

GCI, meanwhile, owns 24% of Classified Ventures, and 53% of CareerBuilder, according to regulatory filings. That controlling interest in CareerBuilder allows GCI to include all of CareerBuilder's revenue on its books -- accounting for a significant portion of GCI's overall digital revenue.

GCI could be among the bidders for Tribune's stakes in Classified Ventures and CareerBuilder if they were sold separately from the newspapers. Indeed, back in February, CEO Gracia Martore told Wall Street analysts that she would be interested in upping GCI's ownership of CareerBuilder.

'Running the math'
"We think it's a great asset," she said during the fourth-quarter earnings conference call. "But for us to invest further, it merely comes down to a question of running the math and seeing whether it makes economic sense for us to do that, and it achieves the kinds of return hurdles that we have for investments that we make."

GCI bought its controlling CareerBuilder interest in an earlier deal with Tribune in November 2008, paying $135 million for an additional 10% as Tribune slipped into bankruptcy. "We were able to get it at a very attractive price, given the backdrop of the economy at that point and the seller's need to raise some cash at that particular moment," Martore said.

But now, with a strengthening economy, CareerBuilder is worth more -- and so, too, is Classified Ventures. Plus, GCI has other competing interests. It's committed to returning $1.3 billion to shareholders by 2015 in bigger dividends and stock buybacks. Also, GCI has been expanding the USA Today Sports Media Group through acquisitions. And there are other potential investments as television stations are offered for sale.

GCI had $143 million in cash at the end of the first quarter, down from $175 million in the preceding quarter.

To be sure, Martore might be content to keep GCI's ownership in Classified Ventures and CareerBuilder unchanged -- instead taking on new co-owners should Tribune sell its stake in the two digital companies with or without the eight newspapers. If nothing else, a Tribune deal would provide a fresh valuation on GCI's digital investments.

Kushner and Koch
Competing bidders for the two digital companies include greeting-card magnate Aaron Kushner, who led a group that bought the Orange County Register and six other Freedom Communications dailies last year, the WSJ says. Koch Industries, which last week said it was is looking into the possibility of acquiring newspapers, is also a possible Tribune bidder. (One of GCI's directors, Neal Shapiro, has a more than passing interest in one of Koch's owners, David Koch.)

Whatever the outcome, it's hard to overestimate the importance of any deal. GCI is repositioning itself as a 21st century media company, with digital accounting for a growing share of overall revenue -- 28% in the first quarter, when all of CareerBuilder's revenue is counted on GCI's books.

Earnings | In digital's growth, a surprising source

When the company held its first "upfront" for marketers this week, national sales chief Mary Murcko told potential advertisers that Gannett was a vastly changed enterprise.

Murcko

"We are not the media company -- the 100-year-old newspaper company -- people still think we are," she told AdAge before Tuesday's show in New York City. "The point of the upfront is to tell our story; 25% of our revenue comes from digital."

Corporate's been emphasizing that metric more and more as proof that GCI's weaning itself from print. Murcko's 25% was in the fourth quarter, when overall revenue was $1.5 billion. A year before, digital was barely 21% of $1.4 billion, according to new U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

What's driving it higher? Surprisingly, it's not the Digital Segment of standalone companies, mostly employment site CareerBuilder and advertising services subsidiary PointRoll. The segment's fourth-quarter revenue grew just 3%, to $187 million, from a year before. That's a reflection, I suspect, of a weaker PointRoll amid management turbulence there.

Instead, digital revenue growth was fueled by everything else -- including, notably, the U.S. community dailies, the most traditional end of the company. Revenue from those sources grew a whopping 73% during the quarter, to $188 million. And that followed rising rates all year: 13% in the first quarter, 28% in the second, and 55% in the third.

Paywalls really a factor?
The Digital Segment's declining role is just as stark when you look at full-year results for 2012. Company-wide digital revenue rose $200 million last year, to $1.3 billion. Of that, the segment accounted for only $32 million.

In its earnings statements for the quarter and year, GCI said the company-wide digital increase "was driven primarily by the impact of the all access content subscription model as well as higher revenue associated with digital advertising and marketing solutions across all segments."

The reference to the all access model -- longhand for the paywalls -- is puzzling, however. Launched across the U.S. newspaper division throughout the year, the paywalls produced just 46,000 digital-only subscribers by year's end, worth perhaps only $550,000 in additional monthly revenue.

Virtually all of last year's circulation revenue growth came from double-digit print subscription rate hikes that accompanied the paywalls. To be sure, that could change this year if Corporate delivers on a forecast of adding up to 250,000 more digital-only subscribers. [Updated at 12:54 p.m. ET on March 9. See the comment thread in this post for more details.]

That leaves digital advertising and marketing solutions, a new area of focus advising small and midsize companies on Web campaigns and social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Last year, Corporate forecast such services would generate between $275 million and $350 million in additional revenue by 2015.

It's still about newspapers
To be sure, GCI remains an analog-centric company. The flip side of Murcko's pitch is that 75% of overall revenue isn't digital. And the lion's share, 65%, is still from print ads and circulation -- even after print ad revenue fell 6.2% last year. In other words, GCI is still very much a century-old newspaper publisher.

But digital's share is rising, and that's clearly a good thing for employees, and for shareholders. The company's stock is up (along with a more buoyant stock market overall, of course). Only this afternoon, GCI closed at $21.59, up 50 cents, for a 52-week high.

Urgent: Gannett's workforce contracts just 1%; document leaves unanswered USCP questions

Gannett employed 30,700 workers at the end of last year, down just 300 from 2011, according to a new regulatory filing. It was the smallest annual reduction since Corporate began a series of massive layoffs in 2006 as revenue plunged across the newspaper industry.

While overall employment fell just 1%, changes to the workforce varied dramatically by division. And the document, the annual 10-K report yesterday afternoon to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, didn't fully account for some of the changes.

In GCI's biggest operating unit, the 81-daily U.S. community newspaper division, employment totaled 18,100 at the end of 2012, down 2,800, or 13%, from 2011.

But it's unclear where all those job losses took place. The division's figures included Gannett Publishing Services, which handles printing, distribution and other functions for newspapers inside and outside the company. The division doesn't include USA Today, however.

GPS employed 7,200 at the end of 2012, down just 500 positions from 2011, according to the 10-Ks for both years. That suggests the community papers gave up the other 2,300 positions -- a huge loss that hasn't been revealed before now.

Newsquest down, broadcasting flat
The 10-K doesn't detail employment for individual newspapers. The community papers include big titles, such as The Arizona Republic in Phoenix and The Indianapolis Star, plus smaller dailies such as New York's Elmira Star-Gazette and Florida's Pensacola News Journal.

The 17-title U.K. newspaper division, Newsquest, had 4,300 employees at year end, down 4% from 2011.

Broadcasting, which includes 23 TV stations, employed 2,600 at the end of the year -- a 1.1% annual increase, according to the 10-K. (That's puzzling, however; the division also had 2,600 at the end of 2011, according to that year's 10-K.)

CareerBuilder, the employment site, had 2,200 workers at the end of last year, up from 2,000 in 2011. GCI owns slightly more than 50% of CareerBuilder, so counts all its employees as GCI's.

In another sign of workforce stability, GCI hasn't imposed unpaid one-week furloughs during the current quarter. That was a big shift from 2009-2011, when most or all employees were furloughed during the first quarter of each of those three years.

The relative stability to GCI's global workforce in 2012 came as overall revenue rose 2.2%, to $5.35 billion, from 2011 -- the first annual increase since 2006.

Still, last year's employment decline to 30,700 was the seventh consecutive year of reductions. In 2005, the last year the workforce grew, GCI employed 52,600 workers. But that year, the company reported overall revenue of $7.6 billion.

Related: spreadsheet shows annual employment, 1994-2012.

Earnings | Shares dive, and some bullet points

Gannett's stock is trading lower as investors weigh the company's just-released fourth-quarter results.

GCI recently traded for $18.77, down $1.07, or 5.4%. This may represent some profit-taking; since the third-quarter report on Oct. 15, GCI has jumped 11%, while the widely watched S&P 500 index climbed just 5% during the same period.

The overall stock market is down, however, with the S&P falling nearly 1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is at 13,880, also down about 1%.

“A lot of the strength this quarter was from television, and that was really driven by political advertising, which won’t be around next year,” Doug Arthur, a media analyst with Evercore Partners, told Bloomberg News. “Newspaper profitability was a little disappointing relative to trends and expectations.”

GCI's stock typically sells off after quarterly announcements, according to Arthur, who rates the stock "overweight."

From the earnings report, following are some items worth highlighting. Note that this year's fourth quarter was one week longer than the year-ago quarter.

Print ad decline narrows

The company's single biggest source of revenue fell once more: 2%, to $658 million. But that was the smallest print advertising decline over the past eight quarters. (This spreadsheet shows revenue changes by major operating division for 2011 and 2012.)

Companywide revenue climbed 9.4%, to $1.52 billion. As expected, the Broadcasting division saved the day on the strength of political advertising during the blistering presidential election. Broadcasting soared 43.9%, to $287.5 million. But that political boost won't exist in 2013.

Circulation rev way up
The across-the-board print subscription rate hikes that accompanied the paywall launches last year continue to boost circulation revenue in the community newspaper division.

In the fourth quarter, circulation rev soared 16.8% to $313 million. That followed a much smaller increase in the third quarter, 5.6%, and a slight decline in the second quarter, as the paywalls extended across the division.

Barring another huge rate increase, year-over-year comparisons will grow tougher as 2013 unfolds.

In a conference call with media analysts, however, CEO Gracia Martore said GCI expects to draw 250,000 to 300,000 paying online-only newspaper subscribers by the end of the year vs. 46,000 at the end of 2012. That's the first time I've seen a digital-only subscription forecast.

Digital growth slides anew
Revenue in the Digital Segment, a portfolio that includes CareerBuilder and ad services subsidiary PointRoll but not the community newspapers, rose just 3.2% in the fourth quarter, to $187.2 million. That was the smallest year-over-year increase across the last eight consecutive quarters.

Jobs site CareerBuilder drove that increase.

In the earnings release, Corporate said that digital revenues company-wide, including the Digital Segment and all digital revenues generated by the other business segments, were $375.6 million, a 29.4% increase from the fourth quarter a year ago.

The company-wide increase was driven primarily by the impact of the paywall-related subscription hikes as well as higher revenue associated with digital advertising and marketing solutions across all segments.

National ads still soft

National advertising, which is a proxy for USA Today's financial health, fell 6.4%. While that includes the entire company, the flagship daily accounts for a disproportionate share. The paper is now in its ninth month of new turnaround leadership under Publisher Larry Kramer.

Murcko

To be sure, the trend is improving. National fell 7.6% in the third quarter; 18.2% in the second quarter, as Kramer was coming on, and 14.5% in the first quarter.

It's worth noting that USAT's ad sales were restructured well before Kramer's arrival, with the February 2012 appointment of Mary Murcko as president of Gannett-wide national sales. Also, in September, USAT redesigned its digital sites and the print edition to attract more advertising.

In the conference call with analysts, Martore cautioned that the paper's restructuring would take time.

"This wasn't a one- or two-quarter transformation," she said in response to a question, according to Seeking Alpha's transcript. "This is a multi-year transformation. And I'd say that's where we stand with USA Today right now is we are getting great feedback on the print side, we're getting terrific feedback on our digital platforms. I think we've made a lot of great enhancements. I think our sports vertical is going to be a good one for us. I think our travel work that we're doing is going to bear fruit. But it doesn't just bear fruit in one quarter, it's going to take a little time."

Sports Media absent
One of the company's biggest revenue initiatives is the USA Today Sports Media Group, which combines all sports content from USAT, plus the community dailies and the 23 TV stations. It is expected to generate an additional $300 million in revenue by 2015.

Today's statement doesn't mention the group once, however, so its unclear what impact it may have had on the quarter's results.

However, in her conference call with analysts, Martore said:

"In 2012, we streamlined our coverage and turned USA Today Sports Media Group into one of the nation's top 5 digital sports destinations, with over 20 million unique visitors each month where it stands today. We have a solid foundation in place and are now working to leverage our strong position by helping advertisers and marketers reach their sports-minded target audiences."

USAT | Deal announced for 10 Best travel site

The company said this morning it has paid an undisclosed amount for 10 Best, a site that offers travel advice for 235 major metropolitan areas comprised of nearly 3,000 individual cities worldwide.

The site will be part of the USA Today Travel Media Group. From the press release announcing the deal:

"The core of the site's uniqueness is its team of local travel experts: a well-traveled and well-educated group who are not only experts in their fields -- and their cities -- but discriminating in their tastes. These local experts live in the city they write about, so the content is constantly updated. In 2012, 10Best.com averaged more than 700,000 monthly unique visitors generating approximately 28 million pageviews."

For perspective, Gannett claims a combined U.S Internet audience of about 51 million monthly unique visitors across its various properties. I believe that figure includes the GCI-controlled employment site CareerBuilder.

The 10 Best purchase is the company's latest bid to bolster the newspaper's travel content with lower-cost news and information from outside sources. Much the same strategy is being used by the USA Today Sports Media Group.

CareerBuilder | Tribune Co.'s stake up to $2.3B; post-bankruptcy, speculation on possible buyers

The Tribune Co. today is finally emerging from bankruptcy court protection, with plans to sell its newspapers and TV stations -- plus "strategic assets" including its stake in online job site CareerBuilder and cable channel Food Network, worth $2.26 billion, the Chicago Tribune is now reporting.

The Tribune story doesn't give a value solely to CareerBuilder, however, citing only an analysis this year by financial adviser Lazard.

Gannett would be expected to consider buying out Tribune Co., assuming a deal on price could be reached. GCI owns a controlling stake of just over 50% in the jobs site, with McClatchy Co. as the third ownership partner.

CEO Gracia Martore has expressed interest in investing in more acquisitions, although she hasn't been specific. The company has millions in cash on hand.

GCI held $237 million in cash and cash-equivalents at the end of the third quarter, according to Corporate's 10-Q filing for the period with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. That was up from $196 million in the same quarter a year before. As recently as this year's first quarter, it stood at just $157 million. 

All eyes on today's October employment report

The federal government's monthly employment report, to be released at 8:30 a.m. ET, is the most closely watched barometer of the nation's economic health -- by consumers, investors and corporations.

Just two weeks ago, for example, CEO Gracia Martore reminded media stock analysts that newspaper advertising in the most recent quarter continued to be hit by weak job growth.

The labor market's impact wasn't limited to advertising. Gannett-controlled employment site CareerBuilder, which is a big driver of GCI's digital operations, contended with the "anemic" job market through product innovations, Martore said.

For today's employment report, economists surveyed by MarketWatch are looking for about 120,000 more jobs in October, with the unemployment rate ticking back up to 7.9% from 7.8%, according to the financial news site.

The report often drives stock prices. Since the U.S. Labor Department published the last one, on Oct. 5, Gannett's stock has fallen 6% from $18.41, closing yesterday at $17.26 a share. That was worse than the S&P 500's 2.3% decline during the same period, according to Google Finance data.

To be sure, the October report will get even greater scrutiny because it's the last one before Tuesday's presidential election, when many voters are ranking the economy as their No. 1 concern.

CareerBuilder | Monster stock tanks on sale doubts

Monster Worldwide shares dropped late today on a news report that it had broken off talks to sell itself to a private-equity firm.

Shares of the CareerBuilder competitor closed down 9.3% to $7.30.

The jobs website put itself up for sale at the end of February and hired advisers in March, but has yet to strike a deal. Several private equity bidders have balked at the asking price of $10 to $12 a share in recent months, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal.

But the sales process has not officially been ended, the WSJ says.

CareerBuilder | When brands collide, you get this

How's this for a convoluted sentence? It's from a press release just issued by the Gannett-controlled CareerBuilder employment site. Word for word:

For the third year in a row, Dunkin' Donuts, the national leading quick service retailer of hot brewed/flavored and iced coffee, according to The NPD Group/CREST®, and CareerBuilder, the global leader in human capital solutions, partnered to determine the latest coffee consumption trends brewing in the U.S. workplace.

CareerBuilder survey: 30% text while commuting

"you go gracia. all access content subscription model so much truthier than paywall."

Related: Today's CareerBuilder survey also finds 58% of workers experience road rage.

[Photo: the famous Hillary Clinton spoofed Reuters photo]

The make-a-difference drumbeat grows louder

Did this happen on purpose?

• Today, a CareerBuilder news release says workers surveyed don't necessarily equate salaries alone with success. There are other factors, including "the ability to make a difference."
• Yesterday, announcing a series of industry awards, CEO Gracia Martore spoke of "journalism that makes a difference."

To be sure, for many years, Gannett has long promoted a national volunteer day created by USA Weekend called Make A Difference Day. And GCI is hardly alone across Corporate America in saying the company is about more than just chasing profits.

But now, the we-do-good public image campaign is getting heaps more attention as Chief Marketing Officer Maryam Banikarim searches for a higher company "purpose."

For the first time I've seen, Martore -- named CEO last fall --- appeared front-and-center in a WUSA-TV news report last October about Make A Difference Day. She told the Washington station: "We feel compelled to make a difference."

That same day, Banikarim appeared in a Today TV show segment, where she noted USA Weekend's role in starting the event 21 years ago. "As a result of that," she told the NBC show, "millions of Americans get out today and make a difference in their local communities."

CareerBuilder survey finds gap in pay raises

As companies recover after the Great Recession, U.S. workers are reporting significant gaps between raises, according to a survey out today for Gannett's industry leading employment site, CareerBuilder.

The survey found 49% of workers said they have not had a merit increase since 2010. And 25% have not had a merit increase since before 2008.

In terms of salaries, most workers said they earn their desired salary (23%) or are close to it (45%). Nearly one-third (32%) said they're not anywhere near their target pay level, the survey found.

Methodology
The survey was conducted online within the U.S. by Harris Interactive among 5,772 workers (employed full-time, not self-employed, non-government) ages 18 and over between Feb. 9 and March 2.

When's the last time you got a raise? Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.

Pop Quiz | Can you identify Gannett's lounge?

The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, Calif., has just started a major newsroom redesign that will feature a new employee lounge, complete with couches and a coffee table.

The Sun isn’t the only site getting kick-back space for workers. “This mandate came from Corporate,’’ says Anonymous@8:44 p.m. “Sites are supposed to create friendly relaxing places with sofas, chairs.”

And not a moment too soon, judging from the following photos!

These are real employee lounges at Facebook, Gannett and Google. Can you match the companies and the photos?

[Lounge at company A]

[Lounge at company B]

[Lounge at company C]

For answers, check out the comments section, below.

Earlier: In Nashville, Tenn., a hullabaloo over an Ikea desk lamp.

Pop Quiz | What's wrong with this paragraph?

Following is from the "Our Company" page on Corporate's website:

As Gannett builds on its valuable local brands and strong journalism, it also is expanding its mobile and digital businesses. It is a digital leader with a portfolio that includes a network of hundreds of local and national media organization web sites that reach 52 million unique users monthly; CareerBuilder.com, the nation’s top employment site which is expanding rapidly internationally and is already in 18 countries outside the U.S.; and Gannett Digital Media Network, which includes top brands such as USATODAY.com, 81 local MomsLikeMe.com sites; HighSchoolSports.net, a top digital sports brand; and action sports network BNQT.

CareerBuilder defends chimps use as humane

Gannett's giant employment site is once more employing chimpanzees in its next round of February Super Bowl ads, Forbes says, despite efforts to end the practice by animal-rights activists and a leading industry trade publication.

Dozens more jobs point to big Deal Chicken push; GCI reveals new 'network of local daily deals sites'

[Updated at 12:31 p.m. April 18 ET. In a first-quarter earnings conference call with Wall Street analysts, CEO Craig Dubow confirmed Gannett is expanding Deal Chicken to nearly 60 sites across the nation by the end of the year.]

Yesterday, Gannett posted more job openings for a nationwide expansion of a social-commerce site that sounds very much like Deal Chicken, the online coupon deal-of-the-day service started in Phoenix last September.

By my count, the company has now posted more than 40 such jobs since Tuesday alone, all on Corporate's jobs website. One posting, for what appears to be a top job, general manager, is especially revealing: "This position requires an experienced manager to take charge of a new product: a network of local daily deals sites."

The GM job's location is described simply as "nationwide." All the positions appear to be for Gannett Digital, which is now part of new Chief Digital Officer David Payne's portfolio. He was hired the middle of last month. Unclear is any specific role assigned to Jack Williams, who is president of Digital Ventures, the GCI arm that includes CareerBuilder, the Moms Like Me network, and other properties.

Combined with those I wrote about yesterday, these job postings include sales account executives; site coordinators; operations managers; content managers, and other management positions. They are in Atlanta; Detroit; Grand Rapids, Mich.; McLean, Va.; Minneapolis; Nashville; Philadelphia; Phoenix; Saint Louis; Washington, and the Wisconsin cities of Appleton, Green Bay and Wausau.

Any Deal Chicken expansion would come as online coupon leaders Groupon and LivingSocial add untold numbers of new consumers to subscription bases that already run into the tens of millions. What's more, the two companies are raising hundreds of millions in new investor dollars from private equity and venture capital firms, plus anticipated initial public offerings.

Survey | Nearly all feature jobs series on Page One

My survey of Gannett newspapers today found that 43 of 47 print front pages featured at least one element of the Corporate-driven weekly jobs series. I counted three elements: a story; a "refer" to an inside story; a refer to the A-section CareerBuilder job listings, or a combination of any three. Today is part five of 12 in the Sunday series, designed to promote the GCI-controlled employment site.

Note: I examined only those pages appearing in the Newseum's daily database. (I didn't count two N.J. papers -- the Home News Tribune and the Courier News -- because of apparent glitches in uploading their Sunday pages to the database.)

Which four papers didn't include any Page One presence? See my spreadsheet.

CareerBuilder | CEO Ferguson talks Super Bowl ads

The employment search-and-find site, controlled by Gannett, will air its chimps commercial during Sunday's Super Bowl. CEO Matt Ferguson and Chief Marketing Officer Richard Castellini talked last night to PBS' Nightly Business Report about the effectiveness of ads on the high-profile game. Here's the trancript. (I can't link to the specific episode; it's Feb. 3's, in the video widget, below.)

CareerBuilder | Monk-e-Maker keeps lawyers busy

As I suspected, CareerBuilder's turn-your-boss into a monkey application for its Super Bowl campaign is as annoying as those dancing Christmas elves -- so much, I was drawn more to the legal fine print that appears at the bottom of the online app:

"Please be advised that Monk-e-Makers created are not private messages and can be viewed and played by others on the internet. Under no circumstances will CareerBuilder be liable in any way for any content provided by a user in any Monk-e-Makers, including, but not limited to any errors or omissions in such content, or any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of the review and/or use of such content. By clicking continue you agree to the Terms of Use. Again, do check the detailed Terms of Use because that legal stuff just isn't monkey business."

Gannett owns a slim majority of Chicago-based CareerBuilder in a partnership with Tribune Co., McClatchy Co. and Microsoft. The employment site is a big piece of GCI's digital portfolio.