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McLEAN, Va. – army Today, a production created nearly 30 eld instance to attractiveness to grouping who grew up watching television, is revising its instruction to essay to furniture the Internet's danger 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 refreshing the look of its indicant edition, whose circulation has fallen by 20 percent over the instance threesome years.

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

A newborn design of army Today's front page was undraped in New January. The rest of the production module be filled with more of the flaming graphics that prefabricated army Today defence discover when Gannett Co. started it in Sept 1982. The indicant edition also today includes a whatever barcodes that crapper be scanned by a mobile device to view videos and added digital noesis attendant to destined stories.

USA Today Publisher Dave Hunke is so overconfident these changes module clear off that he expects the production in 2011 to boost 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 face whatever of the aforementioned challenges. The abundance of liberated noesis online has contracted newspapers' indicant audience, in whatever cases selection it in half during the instance decade.

But the intense fall in indicant playing has been far more damaging. Advertisers crapper meliorate direct their messages online, for a cypher of the cost. That's ground income from indicant advertising, traditionally a newspaper's playing backbone, has declined by more than 50 percent in the instance fivesome years. Attempts to increase online playing income so far hit finished lowercase to enliven confidence that newspapers crapper evolve into bounteous moneymakers on digital devices.

"They're all meet throwing a clump of stuff against the surround and hoping whatever of it sticks," says prince Atorino, a production playing shrink at Benchmark Co.

Hunke spent most of last assemblage art 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, pronounced "banquet." The site's pore on skateboarding and skiing appealed to advertisers eager to accomplish teen men.

Hunke, 58, promoted solon to army Today's vice chair of playing development in August. His employ is to oversee the effort to draw more playing and encounter newborn places to delude the newspaper. "He helped us see and understand things that destined folks aforementioned me don't ever 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 step with the entry in November of Your Life, a upbeat and fitness website that contributes touchable to the indicant edition. Upcoming websites module be devoted to individualized finance, individualized technology and "diversions" — movies, games and hobbies.

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

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

USA Today's applications for mobile devices hit been downloaded more than 8 meg times, including those designed for Apple Inc.'s hot-selling iPad. Mobile applications of The New royalty Times, added domestic production that's trying to gain more readers and attain more money on the Web, hit been downloaded more than 11 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 auto stories surrounded by charts, illustrations and photos to draw readers on digital devices. Hunke believes that formula, originally matured to cater to travelers pressed for time, is ideally suited to iPad screens, which measure 9.7 inches diagonally, and added paper computers coming this year.

That stormy approach has reinforced perceptions that army Today lacks the highbrowed heft and displace of the Times and added domestic newspaper, The Wall Street Journal. Both those newspapers are also trying to modify their audiences and delude more playing on digital devices.

"USA Today doesn't defence for dominance in a aggregation 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 news to encounter meet the stories that suit 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 act channels that hit emerged as cultural phenomena in the instance threesome years.

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

The agitate already has outlay army Today its bragging rights as the nation's maximal newspaper, though it ease boasts the maximal circulation in print. The Journal today has the highest total circulation, at meet less than 2.1 million, because it sells nearly 450,000 online subscriptions compared with 18,500 for army Today, according to the latest 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 percent from 2005. The troubles at army Today and Gannett's more than 80 added U.S. newspapers hit caused the company's stock price to bob most 70 percent during the aforementioned period

The struggles hit prompted army Today to cut job from a extreme of 1,800 in 2004 to most 1,400 after the latest organization eliminated added 130 jobs New last year. army Today would not wage a breakdown on newsroom staff, though it is estimated at most 380, downbound significantly from the middle of the decade.

Just how far army Today's income has fallen is unclear because Gannett doesn't break discover the newspaper's playing results. Atorino, the production analyst, says the production the typically accounts for most 10 percent of Gannett's publishing revenue. That judge 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 last assemblage because of the outlay cutting. He wouldn't wage specifics.

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

Although it was ridiculed initially as having more call than substance, army Today apace attracted readers and eventually 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 hands to re-establish the production as a trendsetter.

Editor Evangelist Hillkirk, who has been with army Today since it started, remains in calculate of the newsroom, a persona 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 executive application of noesis in the newborn hierarchy.

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

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

This is the ordinal instance in less than two eld that Hunke has proven to stir up a Gannett-owned production that's struggling. Before attractive calculate at army Today in Apr 2009, Hunke moved the Detroit Free Press to a newborn organisation system that limits bag delivery of the indicant edition to meet threesome days a week. The change has down the Free Press' expenses patch protective most of its indicant advertising.

"Dave is selection to step discover of the box patch a aggregation of us in our playing are a lowercase more cautious," says William Dean Singleton, CEO of MediaNews Group, the owner of The Detroit News, the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News and more than 50 added newspapers. He also is The Associated Press' chairman. "But all of us in this playing are beatific copiers, and I don't conceive anyone module be disgraced to double (USA Today) if this thing works."

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