Digital First pursuing Gannett

[playthrough]

I think that there are cuts to be made at Gannett. I think you could shut down the USA Today print edition and save money.

And while Gannett has cut reporters they seem to still locally manage their papers. I don't think Gannett has moved to combined newsrooms like some other chains. I could see Gannett owns Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville and some other properties in Tennessee. I could see DFI doing something like having one sports editor for the state and beat reporter on the University of Memphis, the Tennesseans, the Predators and the Grizzilies and leaving maybe one preps guy at each paper.

And for all those who are going to respond that such a consolidation would be an operational disaster, lead to poorer quality papers and eventually fewer subscribers and revenues you are no doubt correct. But DFI does not care. They go for the short term cash influx.

Surely you're right about saving money by axing the printed USA Today, but it's become such a ubiquitous hotel/airport paper that I wonder if that somehow has value to offset what must be huge distribution costs. Maybe I'm crazy.

 

[I Should Coco]

Surely you're right about saving money by axing the printed USA Today, but it's become such a ubiquitous hotel/airport paper that I wonder if that somehow has value to offset what must be huge distribution costs. Maybe I'm crazy.

But how much of USA Today's "target audience" is interested in picking up the print edition with their free continental breakfast anymore? The paper is tiny, none of the news is less than 24 hours old, and it takes up valuable real estate on the tiny table space available for your coffee, bagel, and/or biscuits and gravy.

Just about everyone brings their smart phone to breakfast at hotels and catches up on "news" that way.

 

[playthrough]

But how much of USA Today's "target audience" is interested in picking up the print edition with their free continental breakfast anymore? The paper is tiny, none of the news is less than 24 hours old, and it takes up valuable real estate on the tiny table space available for your coffee, bagel, and/or biscuits and gravy.

Just about everyone brings their smart phone to breakfast at hotels and catches up on "news" that way.

No argument there. I'll pick it up in a hotel and quickly get disgusted with it. But I do pick it up.

 

[crimsonace]

Surely you're right about saving money by axing the printed USA Today, but it's become such a ubiquitous hotel/airport paper that I wonder if that somehow has value to offset what must be huge distribution costs. Maybe I'm crazy.

It might make sense to package USA Today with the local newspaper in those markets to be the hotel/airport paper. It would offset the distribution costs and provide advertiser value.

 

[Jake from State Farm]

One of the worst things Gannett did was lay off all the designers and copy editors at the Free Press
The work was outsourced to Louisville
The first thing they did was put the USA TODAY Network on bylines
They also changed the very distinctive look of the Free Press and made it look like just another cookie cutter Gannett paper

Alden Global Is Out for More Newspaper Blood

 

[crimsonace]

One of the worst things Gannett did was lay off all the designers and copy editors at the Free Press
The work was outsourced to Louisville
The first thing they did was put the USA TODAY Network on bylines
They also changed the very distinctive look of the Free Press and made it look like just another cookie cutter Gannett paper

Papa G did that everywhere, though. Outsourced the design and copy desks, dumped distinctive looks for the Gannett template (I have my HS journalism students go to the Newseum site and use them as templates to design pages, and every single Gannett paper looks the same), and the "USA Today Network" has been obviously an attempt at rebranding.

 

[DanOregon]

Didn't realize that Gannett is jacking up the price of the print produce to about $60 a month (clearly hoping to convert people to digital subscriptions). I rarely see stuff worth clicking on Gannett sites though so I don't know what the point is.

 

[danielpaulling]

It might make sense to package USA Today with the local newspaper in those markets to be the hotel/airport paper. It would offset the distribution costs and provide advertiser value.

But if you're a traveler from, say, New York spending a night in, say, Memphis, what do you care about Memphis news?

 

[Batman]

Didn't realize that Gannett is jacking up the price of the print produce to about $60 a month (clearly hoping to convert people to digital subscriptions). I rarely see stuff worth clicking on Gannett sites though so I don't know what the point is.

In the early 2000s I used to regularly buy a USA Today and read it over a long lunch. The cover stories were usually pretty good, and there were some decent nuggets in the sports and news sections.
Then, over the span of a couple of years, the price jumped from a disposable 75 cents for a good and robust product to an insane $2 for a thinning and lesser one. Two forking dollars for a newspaper.
I don't think I've bought a USA Today in at least five years.

 

[crimsonace]

Didn't realize that Gannett is jacking up the price of the print produce to about $60 a month (clearly hoping to convert people to digital subscriptions). I rarely see stuff worth clicking on Gannett sites though so I don't know what the point is.

We wonder why the industry is dying. Keep charging more and more and more and giving readers less and less and less. That's not a recipe for success.

 

[LanceyHoward]

In the early 2000s I used to regularly buy a USA Today and read it over a long lunch. The cover stories were usually pretty good, and there were some decent nuggets in the sports and news sections.
Then, over the span of a couple of years, the price jumped from a disposable 75 cents for a good and robust product to an insane $2 for a thinning and lesser one. Two forking dollars for a newspaper.
I don't think I've bought a USA Today in at least five years.

I don't think I have seen USA Today sold anywhere other than at an airport newsstand in five years. I only read it when I go to the hotel breakfast room and there is a stack by the entrance and I can take a free copy. I don't know how much Gannett charges the hotels for a copy but I suspect it is very little. And there is not much advertising. I do not see how they generate enough revenue to make a profit.

And as someone who remembers what USA Today was designed to offer when it began which were things last night's scores, the weather, the inside pages with a news blurb form each state. etc. that can easily be accessed on-line why would anyone pay to read it?

 

[BTExpress]

Yesterday the Gannett-owned Knoxville newspaper published high school boys' and girls' basketball polls . . . for Illinois.