Retirement Plans

6 Months Ended

Jun. 30, 2016

Retirement Plans

Defined Benefit Plan Disclosure [Line Items]

Retirement plans

Retirement plans

Our principal defined benefit pension plan is the TEGNA Retirement Plan (TRP). The TRP was created in connection with the spin-off of our publishing businesses. The TRP assumed certain assets and liabilities from the Gannett Retirement Plan (GRP), with the remaining pension obligations of the GRP being retained by our former publishing businesses. The disclosure table below includes the pension expenses of the TRP and the TEGNA Supplemental Retirement Plan (SERP). Our former G.B. Dealey Retirement Pension Plan was merged with the TRP on December 31, 2015. The total net pension obligations, both current and non-current liabilities, as of June 30, 2016, were $183.6 million.

Our pension costs, which include costs for qualified and nonqualified plans, are presented in the following table (in thousands):

	Quarters Ended						Six Months Ended
	June 30, 2016			June 28, 2015			June 30, 2016			June 28, 2015
Service cost-benefits earned during the period	$	158		$	232		$	408		$	465
Interest cost on benefit obligation	6,837			5,651			13,187			11,303
Expected return on plan assets (a)	(6,632		)	(7,498		)	(13,382		)	(14,995		)
Amortization of prior service cost	190			148			340			296
Amortization of actuarial loss	2,194			1,467			3,894			2,935
Expense for company-sponsored retirement plans	$	2,747		$	—		$	4,447		$	4

(a) At the beginning of 2016, we updated our expected annual long-term rate of return on our TRP plan assets to 7.0% from 8.0%. This change resulted in incremental pension costs of approximately $1.4 million in the second quarter of 2016 and approximately $2.8 of incremental pension costs for the six months ended June 30, 2016.

We do not plan to make contributions to the TRP in 2016 because none are required under our current assumptions and current funding level. During the six months ended June 30, 2016, and June 28, 2015, we made $3.3 million and $5.6 million of benefit payments, respectively, to participants of the SERP.