Politico: USA Today to Expand Regional Reporting: Will It Cover USA?

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Chicago, Boston, Las Vegas and Miami will get more exposure in Gannett Co.-owned flagship USA Today as the daily intends to bolster its regional coverage of breaking news and enterprise stories, Politico reported this week.

USA Today reporter Alan Gomez already has his marching orders for 2014 as he will relocate to Miami where he also will be the daily's correspondent for Latin America and South America, according to the Politico article.  USA Today has endured a turbulent 2013, doubling its newsstand price, waffling about erecting a paywall and thinning its newsroom herd through voluntary retirements (see "TUOL" posts 9/26/13 & 3/13/13).

USA Today, a hotel chain fave because it slips so easily under guest room doors, is further increasing its brand as Gannett plans in the coming year to insert a condensed version of the daily into 35 smaller dailies in its newspaper empire, with a goal toward ultimately appearing in all 81 of its print properties, according to Politico.

USA Today Ponders Paywall as Newsstand Price Set to Double

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USA Today President and Publisher Larry Kramer today clarified his comments that appeared in the New York Post that the national newspaper was considering erecting a paywall to charge online readers, telling Poynter.org that  "no plan exists" for the Gannett Co.-owned flagship daily to charge digital readers.

Paywalls already are in place at national dailies, The New York Times and Wall St. Journal, not to mention Gannett's 80 other daily newspapers (see "TUOL" post 2/23/12). With a combined digital and print readership of 1,674,306 that makes it the nation's third largest newspaper, USA Today suffered a 12 percent drop-off in circulation revenue during the Second Quarter of 2013, according to the Post article.

USA Today is days away from doubling its single-copy price to $2 from $1, the first price hike in six years. The increase, necessitated by sagging circulation and ad revenues, is prompting Gannett to remove many of its iconic white, tv-shaped newspaper boxes. Rather than expect faithful followers to jingle as they walk down the street with a pocketful of quarters, Gannett instead has hammered out deals with Starbucks and the Duane Reade pharmacy chain to serve as outlets where the daily may be purchased.

In an attempt to inject new life into the brand, a section including articles from the Life, Money and News sections of USA Today will begin to appear in Gannett-owned dailies in Indianapolis, Appleton (Wis.), Fort Myers and Rochester. Gannett has dubbed the experiment Project Butterfly for reasons unclear to "TUOL," except perhaps that the insect and the paper weigh about the same nowadays and both are more likely to face a gaining net than net gains.

Look Out Belo: Gannett Buys TV Giant in Philosophical Shift From Print to Broadcasting

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McLean, Virginia-based media conglomerate Gannett Co., the nation's largest owner of newspapers, seeing the writing on the wall, is acquiring Dallas-based Belo Corp.,which will make Gannett the fourth-largest owner of network television outlets, according to reports by Reuters and Gannett flagship newspaper, USA Today.

The sale is slated for completion by the end of the year, pending antitrust approval, FCC blessings and the ok of two-thirds of Belo's shareholders, the latter of which is a fait accompli, as Belo's directors and executive officers, holders of 42 percent of outstanding shares, already have given the deal their thumbs up.

Gannett, which counts USA Today,  the Detroit Free Press and The (Louisville) Courier-Journal among its stable of 82 newspapers, will nearly double its television holdings to 43 stations with the addition of Belo's 20 stations, nine of which are in the country's largest markets. Gannett expects to reach almost one-third of U.S. households with the acquisition.

As the newspaper industry continues to take on water with declining circulation and shrinking ad revenues, Gannett, which draws most of its revenue from print, is seeking a makeover. Once finalized, the transaction will enable Gannett to derive almost two-thirds of its pre-tax, pre-interest earnings from its combined digital and broadcast segments.

Belo Corp. previously saw the light in 2008 when it severed its broadcasting holdings, which range from KVUE-TV in Austin and KGW-TV in Portland, Ore., to KMOV-TV in St. Louis, from its newspaper assets, which were spun off into the publicly traded A.H. Belo Corp.

Directors of both companies unanimously approved the $2.2 billion deal, which involves Gannett forking over $1.5 billion in cash and assuming $715 million in debt from Belo.

USA Today to Staffers: Hurry Up & Retire

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Staffers, 55 and older, who have toiled at Gannett Co.'s flagship national daily, USA Today, for at least 15 years, have been offered an early retirement buyout by the financially beleaguered paper, according to media gossip blog, JimRomanesko.com.

The blog reported that as many as 150 employees are eligible to take the money and run, but that the paper is reserving the right to deny buyouts to some of those qualified to receive it.  The daily confirmed that staffers who accept the package will receive two weeks' pay for each year of service up to a maximum one year, and that health insurance coverage would continue throughout the payout period.

The devoted "TUOL" staff was on a USA Today diet during a just-completed  hotel stay and couldn't help but notice how easily the news-depleted daily slid under the hotel room door.

Gannett Quarterly Profits Off a Quarter

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)Restructuring costs and plunging newspaper advertising revenue are to blame for the 25 percent decrease in First Quarter profits for McLean, Va.-based media conglomerate Gannett Co. compared to a year ago.

According to an Associated Press report, Gannett, whose stable includes USA Today among its 82 newspapers, along with 23 television stations, saw a 2.6 percent decline in First Quarter revenues compared to the same period in 2011. Digital ad revenues, however, jumped 6.8 percent.

Lawsuit Follows When Twitter Followers Follow Tweeter to New Job

phonedog (Photo credit: Brad Weikel)In a 13-page complaint filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California alleging misappropriation of trade secrets, conversion and intentional interference with prospective economic advantage, a Delaware corporation based in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, is suing its former editor and video blogger who jumped to a rival company with 17,000 Twitter followers in tow.

USA Today reported on the case, PhoneDog, LLC v. Noah Kravitz (Case No. 3:11-cv-03474), in which the plaintiff, an 11-year-old company that provides information, news and reviews concerning phones and related technology, sued the defendant, who went to work in December 2010, for PhoneDog rival TechnoBuffalo. Not to go off-topic, but what is this technogeek obsession with the animal kingdom?

According to the lawsuit, PhoneDog has analogized Kravitz's  faithful Twitter followers to a proprietary customer list and wants the defendant to kick in $340,000, or $2.50 apiece for the 17,000 followers over an eight-month period. The plaintiff's Website also asserts that the defendant previously promised not to use the Twitter account to say sweet things about technology companies other than PhoneDog.  Kravitz contends PhoneDog over-inflated the worth of the followers, and that Twitter, not PhoneDog, is the true owner of the Kravitz account at issue.

Publisher Projects Paywall Proliferation

Image via Wikipedia"Good fences make good neighbors," poet  Robert Frost wrote in Mending Wall (1914), but McLean, Virginia-based media conglomerate Gannett Co. believes the 80 paywalls it plans to erect by the end of 2012 for the online editions of the 80 community newspapers it owns will make annual subscription revenues climb 25 percent.

Forbes Magazine reported yesterday that Gannett's Robert Dickey, president of community publishing, said a metered payment system will be in place for Gannett newspapers that likely will offer from five to 15 free articles monthly before Website visitors have to pay for content. Presently, six Gannett dailies have digital paywalls in place (see "TUOL" post 7/1/10).

The Forbes article noted that Gannett's leaky flagship, USA Today, will not follow the paywall route of its sister publications for now, as the nationwide paper is in the throes of upgrading and making over its Website.

Poor 4th Quarter Earns Gannett Co. S&P 500 Index Booby Prize

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeUSA Today parent  Gannett Co., which counts 82 newspapers and nearly two dozen tv stations among its holdings, saw its stock plummet 6.9 percent yesterday, making the McLean, Va.-based media conglomerate the worst performer among the S&P 500 Index, Bloomberg News reports.

Gannett, which slashed its work force by 2 percent over the summer (see "TUOL" post 6/21/11) as readers continued to flock to online competitors Google and Facebook for information, suffered its fourth consecutive decline in quarterly revenues, plunging 5.3 percent in its publishing division.  Net income for the Fourth Quarter sank 33 percent, according to Bloomberg, to $116.9 million, or 69 cents a share, compared to $174.1 million, or 72 cents a share, a year ago.

The beleaguered media giant's sales dropped 5.1 percent to $139 billion. Gracia Matore, Gannett's former COO, assumed the helm last October after declining health prompted Craig Dubow to step down.

A far cry from the company's salad days when, on one occasion, USA Today founder Al Neuharth when asked whether the first or second syllable of the conglomerate should be emphasized when identifying the company responded: "It's pronounced 'money.'"

Daily Reaps Rewards of 1st A. Airport Newsrack Case Win--If Only Travelers Read Newspapers...

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Travelers strolling the concourse at Raleigh-Durham (N.C.) International Airport enroute to their probable delayed flights may not notice the newspaper boxes for The New York Times, USA Today and The Raleigh News & Observer, which is too bad, because the newsracks cost the Raleigh Durham Airport Authority nearly $1 million in legal fees.

The News & Observer reported this week that the fruits of its six-year legal battle with the airport authority--coin operated vending boxes--are now in place in Terminal 2 and other locales for iPod-wearing passengers to ignore. A First Amendment suit was filed in 2004 against the airport authority after it said that newspapers only could be sold at airport shops that were not always open for early and late travelers to patronize. (See "TUOL" post 3/15/10.)

Last year, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in The News and Observer Publishing Co., The Durham Herald Co., The New York Times Co. & Gannett Co., Inc. v. Raleigh-Durham Airport Authority (Case No. 5:04-cv-00639) sided with the plaintiffs in noting that the First Amendment protects the distribution, as well as the content, of newspapers, rejecting the defendant's aesthetics, congestion and security arguments against news vending machines.

The afore-named newspapers, and the Durham Herald-Sun, which is expected to go the vending machine route imminently, will pay the airport authority $12.50 per box monthlyrent, according to the News & Observer story.

UPDATE: Unwilling to Protect Our Borders

Image via WikipediaAnn Arbor, Michigan-based Borders Group, Inc. will shutter its remaining 399 Borders book stores nationwide, pink-slipping roughly 11,000 employees, threatening the sales of electronic books, and creating gaping holes of empty space in shopping malls around the country.

Earlier this year, Borders filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy re-organization in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York (Docket No. 11-10614) (see "TUOL" post 2/16/11). Creditors wouldn't bite on the offered bid from Najafi Cos. to keep the bookstore chain afloat, so at the scheduled court hearing on July 21, the company will seek bankruptcy court approval of liquidation of its assets by Hilco Merchant Resources and Gordon Brothers Retail Partners, according to an article in USA Today and a blog post by Geekosystem.com. The liquidation will put money in vendors' pockets, but shopping malls and  urban store locations that drew browsers, if not buyers, aplenty, will go dark.

It's hard to remember that Borders was once the  leviathan "bad guy" that threatened small, independent bookstores, only to be undone itself by Amazon and WalMart.  The demise of Borders means further isolation in our society as people will order their books online, instead of recommending books to each other over a latte in the Borders' cafe.

Media Giant's Earnings Not So Big

Image via WikipediaFirst-quarter earnings for media conglomerate Gannett Co. plunged 23 percent compared to a year ago, while revenues dropped 4 percent compared to the first quarter results in 2010, according to The Huffington Post.

The owner of USA Today and 80 other newspaper posted earnings of $90.5 million or 37 cents a share this quarter, compared to 2010 figures of $117.2 million or 49 cents a share. Likewise, revenues slipped 4 percent to $1.25 billion, from $1.3 billion a year ago. The company missed analysts' earnings projections, continuing the bad news that has seen company-wide staff furloughs and shrinking ad revenues (see "TUOL" posts 2/14/11, 1/5/11).

Gannett Hopes 'It's All Within Reach'

Image via WikipediaThe media conglomerate that is the nation's largest newspaper owner wants apathetic advertisers to know it's also a digital force to be reckoned with.

Gannett Co.'s flagship newspaper, USA Today, reports today that the media giant, which boasts among its holdings 82 newspapers and 23 television stations, has launched a re-branding campaign that features a new logo and a decidedly uninspired tagline: "It's all within reach." Gone is the "G" superimposed on the globe image, replaced by no illustration, just the company's name in a Verlag typeface.

The new campaign by Gannett, which last year realized $588 million in net income on $5.4 billion in revenue, seeks to remind would-be advertisers that the media company's holdings are visible on the Internet, tablet computers and Smartphones, as well as the traditional mainstream outlets of newspapers and television. All Gannett properties will  conspicuously tout their Gannett connection as part of the new campaign.

Gannett's digital holdings, such as Captivate, are bound to benefit from the conglomerate's Grecian Formula-efforts to look younger and more cutting edge.

USA Today--What About Tomorrow?

Image via WikipediaCiting rumblings on the Gannett Blog, the Minnesota Post Web site today is reporting that media giant Gannett Company may be looking to unload its flagship national daily, USA Today, or spin the paper off as a separate entity.

Once the nation's largest circulation daily, USA Today's readership has plunged 20 percent over the past decade to 1.8 million readers, from 2.3 million.  Compounding the bad news is an equally precipitous drop in ad pages to 680 in the Fourth Quarter of 2010, compared to 1,045 ad pages during the Fourth Quarter in 2007.

The shrinking editorial staff and the diminished size of the daily have been chronicled by this blog over the past year. (See "TUOL" posts 11/16/10, 8/27/10, 6/24/10 and 2/12/10.)

Economic Uptick News to Gannett: 1st Q. Furloughs Mandated

Image via WikipediaStaffers at 81 of media conglomerate Gannett Co.'s newspapers, excluding USA Today and The Detroit Free Press, will have to take an unpaid furlough during the First Quarter of 2011 as the newspaper industry continues to grapple with flat ad revenues and dwindling readership, according to Poynter.org's Romanesko media blog.

An internal memo sent to Gannett employees requires salaried employees to take leave for one payroll week, and non-union workers, five business days, before March 27. In a bad news, bad news scenario, staffers at the Hattiesburg American don't have to take a furlough. That's because they're going to have to endure a 6.5 percent pay cut.

Apparently, news that the recession is over and that the economy is recovering has been somewhat exaggerated.

USA Today: News is Hard, So Less Hard News

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A newsroom flow chart for Gannett Co.'s leaky flagship USA Today reproduced in Gannett Blog yesterday is an eye-opener.  Among the lowlights concerning the allocation of editorial resources is that USA Today has five reporters assigned to cover Congress, as compared to 27 journalists covering entertainment.


Over the past four years , circulation at USA Today, the nation's second largest daily after The Wall St. Journal, has dropped to 1.8 million from 2.3 million, while ad pages have decreased by half the same period [see "TUOL" post 8/27/10]. 


Gannett no doubt considers the redistribution of reporters as a revenue and readership booster, but count "TUOL" as among the rank and file who view it as capitulation. It's also misguided as Congress is at least as shallow as the entertainment world.

ABC 'Good News' for Newspapers: You Circulation Losses Are Slowing Down

Image by fables98 via FlickrLooking for a kind word where it can find it, the newspaper industry has glommed onto the latest circulation figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) for the six-month period from April 2010, to September 2010, which show a 5 percent decline compared to the same period in 2009. The industry can take solace in the fact that last year, the drop-off in newspaper circulation was more than twice that rate.
From April to September this year, The Dallas Morning News and The Wall St. Journal were the only two major dailies that experienced a circulation boost.  The Wall St. Journal's circulation grew by 2 percent and reported the largest circulation overall of more than 2 million, which includes 450,000 electronic subscriptions. USA Today was second largest at 1.8 million, a 4 percent decrease compared to 2009 figures, followed by The New York Times, which sustained a 6 percent decline in circulation to 877,000.

With Staff Cuts, USA Today Looks to Tomorrow

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeAnother 130 positions will be slashed from the business and editorial side this fall at Gannett Co.'s USA Today, a 9 percent reduction of the McLean, Va.-based daily's 1,500-member work force, according to an Associated Press story.

The AP account says USA Today, the nation's second largest newspaper after The Wall St. Journal, will shift its emphasis from its print edition to platforms including mobile devices, IPads, the Internet, and other digital forums. The re-organization will involve creating "content rings," including USA Today Sports, Breaking News, Your Life, Travel, Investigative, Tech, Personal Finance, Washington/Economy, National, World, Aviation, Autos, Entertainment and Environment/Science.

Gannett Co.'s stock has plunged nearly 80 percent over the past four years as circulation of its flagship daily has declined to an average 1.83 million compared to 2.3 million in 2007. Ad pages are off nearly 50 percent from four years ago.(See "TUOL" posts 6/24/10 & 2/12/10.)

On the positive side, the thinner USA Today slips more easily under chain hotel guest room doors nowadays.

USA Today Staffers Brace for More Bad News

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According to GannettBlog, an independent journal that covers media conglomerate Gannett Co., the 1,500+ employees at Gannett's flagship national paper USA Today are on tenterhooks following Publisher Dave Hunke's remarks at a staff meeting last week concerning an imminent significant reorganization of the paper that will include "involuntary layoffs."

Grappling with industrywide drops in circulation and ad revenue, a slowdown in business travel, and fierce challenges from national competitors New York Times and Wall St. Journal, USA Today has experienced a 14 percent drop in circulation from a year ago and an 11 percent decline in advertising in the first quarter of 2010, compared to a year ago. The GannettBlog post notes that the A section of the 28-year-old paper one day last month featured only two advertisements.

Media Audit: WSJ Readership Climbs Under Murdoch Ownership

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Editor & Publisher reports that a recent study by Media Audit of  The Wall St. Journal, The New York Times and USA Today covering 2007 to 2009 shows a 20 percent jump in Journal readers since Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. acquired the business daily in 2007, while the Times readership remained flat and USA Today's plummeted.

Media Audit attributed the boost in readership to the Journal's increased coverage of politics and non-business news. According to the study, in 2009, more than 4.3 million adults read the WSJ in the more than 80 markets surveyed, or 3 percent of  adults in those markets, compared to 2.5 percent of adults who read the WSJ in those markets in 2007.

Meanwhile, Gannett Co.'s USA Today saw its readership decline over  the three-year period by 8.3 percent, while 4.4 percent of adults read the Times both in 2009 and 2007, according to Media Audit. Not surprisingly, the Media Audit study found that WSJ readers generally were more affluent than those of its counterparts.

USA Today Staff Feeling (Fur)lough

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The good news for the roughly 1,500 workers at Gannett Co.'s USA Today is that they each will get to choose a week off between Feb. 28 and July 3.  The bad news is they won't be getting paid for the time off.

With ad pages down 10.5 percent in the last quarter,  the newspaper imposed the furlough and extended the year-old salary freeze another three months. The paper experienced a 17 percent drop in circulation for the six-month period that ended in Sept. '09. Most of the staff was forced to take a two-week unpaid furlough last year.