A possible merger between two of the largest newspaper companies in the United States, Tronc Inc. (NASDAQ: TRNC) (formerly Tribune Publishing) and Gannett Co. Inc. (NYSE: GCI), collapsed in early November. After the air had cleared, the shares of each were still at levels about where they traded two months ago. Investors likely are waiting for each to report its fourth-quarter numbers. And in each case the most anticipated numbers will be the digital revenue, which needs to keep a growth pace faster than the drop in paid print circulation and advertising. The race is now an old story for the industry, and among its most essential.

The fact that the market has held off in terms of driving share price movement obviously means that the post-M&A value of the two companies has been set based on their current businesses. In terms of Tronc, management has promised a digital revolution more extensive than those set out by most other companies in the sector. The company means to use a sort of artificial intelligence (AI) to create and curate stories, along with an explosion in the amount of video its properties serve, to drive what has been a drop of corporate revenue higher. In the most recently reported quarter, which ended on September, revenue was $378 million, down from $406 million in the same period the year before. Tronc posted a net loss of $10 million, compared to $9 million in the third quarter of 2015. The initial results of the AI and video initiative ought to show up in the management narrative for the fourth quarter.

Gannett’s results were not much different, albeit with some one-time events. Revenue rose to $772 million for the third quarter from $701 million in the same period a year ago. Gannett management said that much of this improvement was due to the purchase of the assets of North Jersey Media Group. The bottom line was more telling. Gannett lost $24 million for the period, compared to a profit of $39 million in the year-ago period. This year was affected $29 million of “facility consolidation and asset impairment charges.”

Among the most critical challenges both Gannett and Tronc face is that they are unlikely to come close to matching the digital subscription revenue of New York Times Co. (NYSE: NYT), which presumably is based on the place of its flagship as America’s paper of record, if there is any such thing. The Times had nearly 1.6 digital only subscriptions at the end of the September period, and it reported after the presidential election that the figure had grown by 132,000 in less than a month. Given past results from the two companies and digital paid subscription trends across the industry, Tronc and Gannett will need to rely much more on digital advertising than on a New York Times model.

The stocks of Tronc and Gannett were thrown out of what would have been a normal trajectory by merger talks. Now they can move according to results.

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