USA Today's Ambassador Abroad p. 66

By: Robert O'Connor

International edition of Gannett's national daily has a
circulation of about 65,000 and readers in 90 countries sp.

A DECADE OR so ago, Gannett Co. Inc. noticed that an odd thing was happening to the editions of USA Today that were carried by airlines flying from the United States to Hong Kong: They were being taken from the planes, ironed and resold.
"We thought, well, maybe there is something to this," recalled Thomas Bates, London-based managing director of USA Today International. "So as a test, we started flying copies of the newspaper over in late 1984."
Sales were good enough to encourage satellite printing in Singapore in October 1985. Other sites followed: Switzerland, May 1986; Hong Kong, April 1988; London, Sept. 1993.
Today, the international edition of USA Today has a circulation of around 65,000, of which about 20,000 is in Asia.
Overall, the paper is delivered to more than 90 countries. Circulation is about twice what it was in 1986, when printing began in Switzerland.
"I think we can have some double-digit gains in the next couple of years," Bates said. "We want to do it profitably, though. We're not prepared to dump papers on the market."
In April, to coincide with the beginning of the U.S. baseball season, USA Today International shifted from a Tuesday through Saturday publication cycle to Monday through Friday.
The old schedule was a hangover from the days when the paper was flown abroad after being edited in suburban Washington and printed in suburban New York. Monday to Friday, explained John Simpson, editor of USA Today International, "is a much better time for the readers."
There is a continuing emphasis, Bates said, on getting ever fresher news into the newspaper. In the early days, when the paper was flown to Europe, "it was like 'USA Two Days Ago.' Now we're to the point where it really is an edition with news. It's competitive with the international press."
The function of the international edition, Simpson said, is "to be USA Today's ambassador overseas. So we try to reflect the USA Today approach to all of our coverage. I see us as bringing U.S. news and international news from a U.S. perspective to our readers."
Americans who live abroad are an important target of the international edition. Demographically, Bates said, USA Today International readers are the "cream of the crop," with an average annual household income of $165,000, up from $134,000 in 1992.
Almost 80% of readers live outside the United States. The rest are American travelers, with a strong bias toward business travel. Locally, resident readership in Europe is divided about evenly between Europeans and expatriates.
"Some people sort of think of this as the newspaper just for American tourists," Simpson said. "And it's not. It's quite clearly got a good following among people resident overseas."
Bates recognizes that the international edition is "a special interest publication. This is for people ? Americans and non-Americans ? who are interested in U.S. news or the U.S. spin on things. So by definition, that's going to be a smaller target, although I don't think we've fully tapped into that target."
The international edition is in two sections averaging 20 pages in total. The U.S. edition is printed in four sections and tends to run over 40 pages.
The international edition carries less advertising. Obviously, superfluous material such as U.S. television listings is not included. The front pages of the news and business sections of the overseas edition tend to be more international than those of the U.S. edition.
The European and Asian editions are broadly similar, apart from the weather map and some advertising.
News and features are carried in the first section of the international edition. Sports and business are in the second.
"In terms of content, we obviously lose some material," Simpson said. "But substantially, all of the hard news is in."
The international edition carries a thrice-weekly column aimed at American expatriates called "USA Abroad." It deals with such issues as personal finance, voting law and citizenship.
The column also carries profiles of Americans living overseas. A recent personal finance column dealt with the intricacies of buying a house in France.
Other differences involve timing.
Simpson and his editing staff, who are based in Rosslyn, Va., operate on deadlines that would parallel those of a U.S. evening paper.
"So we go to press, depending on your perspective, either 12 hours after or 12 hours before the domestic edition of USA Today," Simpson said.
The tone of advertising is different in the international edition. Because Europe, for example, is a collection of different national markets, ads tend to involve image promotion rather than price specifics.
In the United States, advertisers are able to make direct sales pitches based on uniform prices to a broad national audience. European advertisers, Bates said, "may have very different rates in each of the countries."
U.S. telecommunications companies ? AT&T, MCI and Sprint ? are heavy advertisers in the international edition.
"We can get their codes to the right people at the right time," Bates said. "Those are daily programs that you wouldn't see in the U.S."
USA Today, particularly in its use of color and graphics, has been widely imitated in Europe. Bates believes that the influence of the paper over the years has also changed the European perception that color in a newspaper is somehow down market.
"I'm very happy in Europe to see color appearing in more and more quality newspapers," he said.
Hugh Stephenson, professor of journalism at City University in London, said USA Today "has had a huge effect on newspaper production in this country. It's had an enormous impact on newspaper design. Everybody now uses that pale blue color everywhere. Huge multicolor weather maps and all of that are taken straight from USA Today."
Stephenson said that the example of USA Today came at a time when British newspaper publishers were taking on their printing unions, which had long blocked the introduction of new technology in the national press.
Suddenly, he said, "it was possible to do things in color."
The most obvious example of the influence of USA Today in Britain, Stephenson said, is Today, a national tabloid founded in 1986. Today was launched by Eddy Shah, a businessman who was encouraged in the venture by his victory in a printing strike in northern England.
The paper is now owned by Rupert Murdoch, who defeated the print unions in the marathon News International strike of 1986. The two strikes finally broke the power of the printing unions.
So dominant have been the design ideas of USA Today, Stephenson said, "that I think we must now be about reaching the stage where something new has got to be done. Everybody has USA Todayed themselves. It's time for the next wave of design."
Brian MacArthur, who was the first editor of Today, said that USA Today had a "significant" influence on Today ? "partly simply by the example of launching a newspaper against the established giants."
He also cited the example of USA Today's regional focus and its use of color.
"We got obsessed with color," he said.
But MacArthur, who is now executive editor of the London Times, is less impressed with USA Today's editorial product. He called USA Today "the ultimate word-bite paper" and complains that "there is not really much to read in USA Today. You don't get a proper meal. You get lots of snacks."
MacArthur said while colleagues might read either the International Herald Tribune or Wall Street Journal, he knows of none who takes USA Today.
At editorial conferences, "it's quite likely that someone will talk about the Wall Street Journal or Herald Tribune. But I don't recall a single time when anybody's mentioned USA Today."
Bates said USA Today International is "OK financially" but is not in profit. He would not discuss details.
Besides contributing advertising revenues into the United States, he said, the overseas paper seeks to increase "the visibility and exposure of USA Today."
A New York-based analyst, who asked not to be identified, said the international edition "certainly contributes" to the overall position of USA Today. The foreign edition, he said, has exported the kind of journalism that has established a niche in the smaller U.S. newspaper markets that lack national coverage.
"There is nothing overseas that describes America in the way that USA Today does, which is what's the weather like in Des Moines," the analyst said. "It basically is what is really going on in the United States in terms of the day-to-day activity ? state-by-state, even, in terms of weather, sports, entertainment."
Single-copy sales make up the largest share of international circulation. This reflects newspaper-buying patterns in Europe, and coincidentally, the experience of USA Today in the United States, where it relies on highly mobile customers for much of its circulation.
In Europe, Bates said, "we've got about half our audience going to the newsstand that day and buying it ? Piccadilly Circus, Frankfurt Airport, all the key places."
Another 30% or so of international circulation consists of what Bates describes as "blue-chip" discount sales to hotels and airlines. The discounts are negotiated individually, depending on the quantity ordered. Airline customers include Lufthansa, KLM and British Airways.
The rest of the circulation consists of subscriptions, a category USA Today would like to encourage.