USA Yesterday

USA Today has announced that, due to progressively declining readership, it will reduce the frequency of its publication. Every other weekday, hopefully three editions (M-W-F) and not two (T-T), the newspaper will become a periodical, relying on the Inet to reach readers no longer willing to shell out their money for a dying cause.

Yesterday’s news will become the norm, condensing on-line articles from the previous day to save on paper and ink. Not only are there fewer readers but in these economically challenging times when there are too few working men and women, advertisers don’t have the cash or they find that, whatever amount they’ve paid for an ad, the returns in revenue just don’t make a profit.

I can hear the words coming from the voice at a newsstand, Read it! Read it! Read all about it! It’s yesterday’s news but it’s just as bad today!

After 26 years as a staple of providing the latest in worldwide reporting, the paper’s hope of surpassing the circulation of The Times of India with 2.8 readers has come to end. There’s no consolation for being second best with an all time high of only 2.5 million copies distributed in all 50 States, Canada and Guam.

The Nation’s Newspaper will also have fewer full-color pages to catch the eye of people bypassing their vending machines. Published by Gannett Company, USA Tomorrow will become one of over 1,000 non-daily publications. Gannett will still maintain, and more heavily rely on, its 130 Web Sites, reaching nearly 24 million visitors monthly.

For the time being, Gannett will rely on the 20 million households that tune into its 23 television stations. Gannett is promoting the belief that the primary reason for the reduction in printed editions is to go-green by cutting down fewer trees. A stiff upper lip and all else that comes with a bad turn of events indicate otherwise.

Gannett has declined to comment on the future of one of its other publications, USA Weekly, as insiders have suggested it may soon be renamed USA Monthly.