Shares in Gannett rallied by 30.6 per cent on Wednesday after the largest US newspaper publisher and the first in its industry to announce second-quarter earnings reported faster than expected savings from cost-cutting programmes.

The deep advertising slump and continuing disruption of print business models dragged earnings per share down from $12.04 to 46 cents before one-off items, but investors seized on comments that Gannett had seen “some small encouraging signs” in the past three months.