How Profitable is USA Today?

Most of USA Today's circulation are motels that can't be paying much for each copy. Advertising is pretty sparse and distribution costs have got to be huge. But Gannett keeps them open. Does anyone know how they survive? Just wondering?

 

They're probably giving some hotels a ridiculous rate of pennies on the dollar and just giving some for free. At the end of the day, they claim the high circulation numbers that translate into more ad dollars. Plus, by the looks of their advertising, they probably have year-round contracts with lots of advertisers. They also print at places all over the country for easier distribution.

 

I remember reading most of the hotels pay a penny per paper, a bundle of 100 for $1. That's probably 60-70 percent of their circulation right there.

The distribution costs probably aren't as high as one would think, as it's been printed on all the local Gannett presses for years. The papers I worked at started printing USATs after the last edition of our rag, and I'm pretty sure our carriers took them on their local runs.

 

I think that the 60-70% is low. I think I saw a report that paid circulation for the print edition was less than 100,000. I found a 2014 article that USA Today that said total circulation of the stand alone print edition was a little over a million.

I realize that if Gannett stopped printing a stand alone product almost all of the editorial staff would still be needed to provide material for the local newspapers. But I would think that if they are selling the bulk of the product at heavily discounted rates that they would have trouble covering the cost of the paper.

 

Does anyone ever see someone buy USA Today at their newsstand or convenience store? The deli by me that has newspapers doesn't have it, and the Luk Oil doesn't either. The Quick Check has it, but I've never seen anyone buy it. If not at hotels, airports are the only place I've seen people buying or reading it.

 

I read my first USAToday in about 6 months last week and you know what? It's still a damn good newspaper with lots of info I just do not see anywhere else.

 

This is a really weird thread, in that it has yet to mention online.

 

What info that you didn't see anywhere else? Think it's decent, but don't really ever read it and think that info is nowhere else.

 

I haven't paid for any USA Today products since I bought a Baseball Weekly a long, long time ago.

 

So why don't you read it more?

 

Because USA Today will continue as a insert for the growing number of Gannett papers. And since the central editorial staff will still exist even if the stand alone print product dies the website will.

I don't look at the website much myself because I subscribe to a couple of papers on-line already and get sports from ESPN, mostly because of habit/laziness. Is the USA Today website good?