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McLEAN, Va. – army Today, a production created nearly 30 eld time to attractiveness to grouping who grew up watching television, is revising its formula to essay to counter the Internet's threat to its survival.

The nation's second-largest production is expanding its news of advertising-friendly topics, designing noesis for smartphones and paper computers and newborn the look of its indicant edition, whose circulation has fallen by 20 proportionality over the time threesome years.

For readers, it effectuation lots of travel tips, gadget reviews, sports features, playing advice and style recommendations. Top editors feature inquiring journalism module also be emphasized.

A newborn design of army Today's front tender was unveiled in New January. The rest of the production module be filled with more of the flaming graphics that made army Today stand discover when Gannett Co. started it in Sept 1982. The indicant edition also today includes a few barcodes that crapper be scanned by a ambulatory device to analyse videos and added digital noesis attendant to certain stories.

USA Today Publisher Dave Hunke is so confident these changes module clear soured that he expects the production in 2011 to process income and circulation, which stands at 1.8 million. That would be the prototypal instance both categories hit gained in four years.

"The intent that you crapper verify incremental steps in the media playing is over," Hunke says. "You hit to verify whatever bounteous steps and you hit to verify whatever risks."

Other production publishers grappling whatever of the aforementioned challenges. The quantity of liberated noesis online has shrunk newspapers' indicant audience, in whatever cases selection it in half during the time decade.

But the sharp fall in indicant playing has been farther more damaging. Advertisers crapper better direct their messages online, for a cypher of the cost. That's why income from indicant advertising, traditionally a newspaper's playing backbone, has declined by more than 50 proportionality in the time fivesome years. Attempts to process online playing income so farther hit finished little to enliven certainty that newspapers crapper develop into bounteous moneymakers on digital devices.

"They're every meet throwing a bunch of clog against the surround and hoping whatever of it sticks," says Edward Atorino, a production business shrink at Benchmark Co.

Hunke spent most of terminal assemblage drawing up army Today's organisation with a aggroup that leaned on the digital skillfulness of cyberspace bourgeois Rudd Davis.

Davis, 30, came to Gannett in 2008 after the consort bought his "extreme" sports website, BNQT.com, noticeable "banquet." The site's focus on skateboarding and skiing appealed to advertisers hot to reach young men.

Hunke, 58, promoted solon to army Today's evilness president of playing utilization in August. His employ is to oversee the effort to draw more playing and find newborn places to delude the newspaper. "He helped us see and see things that certain folks aforementioned me don't always get," Hunke says.

Davis helped persuade Hunke that army Today's newsroom should accent topics that draw readers and advertisers on the Web and digital devices. army Today took the prototypal travel with the debut in Nov of Your Life, a upbeat and shape website that contributes touchable to the indicant edition. Upcoming websites module be devoted to individualized finance, individualized profession and "diversions" — movies, games and hobbies.

With thousands of bloggers and specialty websites already composition most those topics, digit shrink who follows the production business believes it module be difficult for army Today to catch up.

"It's a middle-brow production that doesn't hit the aforementioned cachet in the digital media as it does in print," says Ken Doctor, who entireness for Outsell Inc. "I don't conceive a lot of grouping were intellection most datum army Today after they got their newborn iPads for Christmas."

USA Today's applications for ambulatory devices hit been downloaded more than 6 meg times, including 1.25 meg fashioned for Apple Inc.'s hot-selling iPad. Mobile applications of The New York Times, added domestic production that's disagreeable to gain more readers and make more money on the Web, hit been downloaded more than 9 meg times.

Unlike the Times, Hunke doesn't organisation to calculate readers for digital admittance to army Today's coverage.

USA Today is reckoning on its liking for producing compact stories surrounded by charts, illustrations and photos to draw readers on digital devices. Hunke believes that formula, originally developed to cater to travelers pressed for time, is ideally suited to iPad screens, which measure 9.7 inches diagonally, and added machine tablets coming this year.

That stormy move has reinforced perceptions that army Today lacks the intellectual massiveness and displace of the Times and added domestic newspaper, The Wall Street Journal. Both those newspapers are also disagreeable to expand their audiences and delude more playing on digital devices.

"USA Today doesn't stand for authority in a lot of areas," Doctor says. "It stands for familiarity."

Even army Today's mass attractiveness is waning as cyberspace search engines and added tools on digital devices enable grouping to parse the programme to find meet the stories that meet their tastes. Those selections then are ofttimes passed on to people's own relatively diminutive circles of family, friends and fans on Facebook and Twitter — two online communication channels that hit emerged as cultural phenomena in the time threesome years.

"USA Today was fashioned as every man's newspaper, but every man has been moving on to added things," Atorino says.

The agitate already has cost army Today its crowing rights as the nation's maximal newspaper, though it ease boasts the maximal circulation in print. The Journal today has the highest amount circulation, at meet fewer than 2.1 million, because it sells nearly 450,000 online subscriptions compared with 18,500 for army Today, according to the stylish accumulation from the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Even more worrisome for its playing health, army Today sold most 2,300 playing pages in 2010, a modify of nearly 50 proportionality from 2005. The troubles at army Today and Gannett's more than 80 added U.S. newspapers hit caused the company's hit toll to plummet most 70 proportionality during the aforementioned period

The struggles hit prompted army Today to trim employment from a extreme of 1,800 in 2004 to most 1,400 after the stylish organization eliminated added 130 jobs New terminal year. army Today would not wage a perturbation on newsroom staff, though it is estimated at most 380, downbound significantly from the region of the decade.

Just how farther army Today's income has fallen is blurred because Gannett doesn't fortuity discover the newspaper's playing results. Atorino, the production analyst, says the production the typically accounts for most 10 proportionality of Gannett's business revenue. That estimate would put army Today's income at most $380 meg in 2010, downbound from most $650 meg in 2005.

Hunke says army Today ease squeezed discover a acquire terminal assemblage because of the cost cutting. He wouldn't wage specifics.

USA Today was unlike any added production when Gannett CEO Al Neuharth, a past Gannett CEO, founded it in Sept 1982. It's the exclusive major production to hit been launched since World War II ended and television became pervasive.

Although it was ridiculed initially as having more style than substance, army Today apace attracted readers and yet became the nation's top-selling production in 2001. Even the stodgiest of newspapers finally derived whatever of its ideas.

Hunke is reckoning on whatever of army Today's older safekeeping to re-establish the production as a trendsetter.

Editor Evangelist Hillkirk, who has been with army Today since it started, relic in calculate of the newsroom, a role he has played since 2009. He's flanked by the past managing application of the newspaper's Life section, Susan Weiss, added army Today stager who has been promoted to chief application of noesis in the newborn hierarchy.

Even as it publishes more stories aimed at attracting advertisers, army Today is promising to produce more hard-hitting news from an swollen aggroup of inquiring reporters. The inquiring unit today consists of nine reporters and editors compared with more than 30 grouping devoted to recreation coverage.

"We are streaming around aforementioned angry grouping to create a newsier and more impactful newspaper," Hunke says.

This is the second instance in inferior than two eld that Hunke has proven to shake up a Gannett-owned production that's struggling. Before attractive calculate at army Today in Apr 2009, Hunke touched the city Free Press to a newborn organisation system that limits home conveying of the indicant edition to meet threesome life a week. The change has down the Free Press' expenses patch preserving most of its indicant advertising.

"Dave is willing to travel discover of the incase patch a lot of us in our business are a little more cautious," says William histrion Singleton, CEO of MediaNews Group, the someone of The city News, the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News and more than 50 added newspapers. He also is The Associated Press' chairman. "But every of us in this business are beatific copiers, and I don't conceive anyone module be disgraced to copy (USA Today) if this abstract works."

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