USA Today is cutting staff and reorganizing its audience team after acknowledging that publishing more content no longer delivers the growth it once did.
“Growing audience by producing more content isn’t as effective as it once was. Search traffic is under pressure,”
USA Today senior vice president Monica Richardson said in an internal memo shared by New York Times reporter Ben Mullin.
The memo said platforms are increasingly keeping users inside their own products rather than sending them to publishers. The cuts also affected local newspapers owned by USA Today Co., formerly Gannett. The company has not disclosed how many positions were eliminated.
USA Today will replace its existing Audience Team with a combined Audience and Digital Production Team covering publishing, priority content areas, search, social media and other platforms.
A new executive editor job listing says the operation will have between 23 and 30 people and use AI-assisted tools for SEO drafts, content tagging, briefings and social copy.
The changes follow a sharp audience decline. USA Today Co. reported 158 million monthly visitors in the second quarter, down from 180 million in the previous quarter. Digital advertising revenue fell 9.2% to $79.8 million.
CEO Mike Reed has said the company could eventually block Google if the two sides cannot agree on content licensing.
Image Credit: Patrickneil/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
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