Retirement Plans

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2016

Defined Benefit Plan Disclosure [Line Items]

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 September 30, 2016, were $182.6 million.

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



	Quarters Ended						Nine Months Ended
	Sept. 30, 2016			Sept. 27, 2015			Sept. 30, 2016			Sept. 27, 2015

Service cost-benefits earned during the period	$	204		$	97		$	612		$	562
Interest cost on benefit obligation	6,449			5,898			19,636			17,201
Expected return on plan assets ^(a)	(6,691		)	(8,169		)	(20,073		)	(23,164		)
Amortization of prior service cost	165			206			505			502
Amortization of actuarial loss	1,846			3,652			5,740			6,587
Expense for company-sponsored retirement plans	$	1,973		$	1,684		$	6,420		$	1,688

(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 third quarter of 2016 and approximately $4.2 million of incremental pension costs for the nine months ended September 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 nine months ended September 30, 2016, and September 27, 2015, we made $4.2 million and $6.5 million of benefit payments, respectively, to participants of the SERP.