Amy Rose F.

Abalunan
Marketing Management

USA TODAY: INNOVATION IN AN EVOLVING INDUSTRY

I. Introduction

USA Today was debuted in 1982 as America’s first national general interest daily newspaper
by Allen H. Neuharth, former Chairman of Gannett Co. Inc., back to 1989, As of today,
Gannett is a global information multinational that publishes 82 daily and 700 non daily
newspapers and affiliated websites, together with 23 broadcast television stations in
operations reaching 18.2% of the U.S population. Gannett is currently the largest U.S.
newspaper group in terms of flow with its combined circulation (including USA Today) is
11.6 million readers every weekday and 12 million readers every Sunday. Aside from that,
Gannett’s has taken a quarter of the total U.S. Internet audience, which roughly 52 million
unique visitors per month.
USA Today’s mission statement was to make its news helpful and enjoyable to the public,
informative to the national leaders, and attractive to the advertisers. Each topic is
presented in four sections which is News, Money, Life and Sports. Its slogan’s ‘An economy
of words, A wealth of information’ suits best for its focus on brevity and clarity, short
sentences and short words in its reporting despite critics that labeled USA Today as junk
food journalism for its terse, brash writing style and short coverage of complex issues.
Despite the growing trend in newspaper circulation and revenue, USA Today is faced with
trials to turn into profitability. By late 1985, circulation surpassed 1.4 million but cost also
double its original price per issue. For the first ten years, USA Today incurred a loss of $600
million. Profit was only achieved by 1993 of $5 million and doubled to $10 million the
following year.
Aside from growing cost, USA Today was also challenged with direct competition from other
national newspaper such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, cable networks,
internet sites such as Yahoo! and Google. The competitors are also aiming business readers
and their product lines include newspapers, newswires, magazines, websites, indexes,
television and radio. They also have strategic alliances with other information companies
such as CNBC, Reuters and Smart Money.
As a print media, USA Today has to deliberate hard how to sustain itself in the mainstream
of media industry. Larry Kramer the new CEO of USA Today is accountable to chart and
implement a corporate strategy to focus on digital media, starting with re-launch of USA
Today’s online, mobile and tablet product. USA Today must stay to use various value-added
services to further enhance distribution of its proprietary content and continued product
differentiation to remain successful. In the face of competition in both print and digital
markets, the future of USA Today depends on its ability to continue to innovate and adapt
its marketing strategies to changing needs of the market.

II. ISSUES UNDERLYING THE PROBLEM

Face stiff competition with direct and indirect competitors in the market USA Today has
been in the market for 32 years and labelled themselves as “The Nation’s Newspaper”, aside
facing competition with other national newspapers, their direct competitor, mainly Wall
Street Journal and New York Times.
Increasing Cost and Decreasing in Revenue Being proud of their achievement of being one of
the most circulated newspaper in the U.S., they been struggling with decreasing revenues
and increasing cost even before the recession in 2008.
Advancement in technology, news is readily available in a lot of ways. Internet modeled the
most impact on USA Today as it can be beneficial and threatening at the same time as they
face yet more competition. Most of the sites on the internet offer free and up to date news
to the masses.

III. Alternatives Solutions to the Problem

USA Today can merge with competitors to achieve cooperation. Cooperation is the magic
force that allows for enhanced cost efficiency of the new business. Cooperation takes the
form of revenue enhancement and cost savings.
By merging with some competitors USA Today may benefit from the staff reductions,
achieve economies of scales, acquiring new technology, and improved market reach and
industry visibility.

IV. RECOMMENDATIONS
The best alternative that I can recommend for USA Today is shifting the bulk of focus on the
digital division and looking for the new partnership and merge with competitors to
cooperation. They were losing their market share in the daily newspaper sales. By working
with new partners and achieve collaboration, USA Today will not only can reduce the
operating cost but can also help the company to find the new ideas on their network
strategy. Managers and other heads can combine all the new ideas and to produce the best
one which is the most suitable for the company and its shareholders.