Gannett’s USA Today to Impose Leave, Extend Pay Halt

Gannett Co.’s USA Today will enforce a weeklong unpaid leave for about 1,500 employees between the end of this month and July to help counter declining advertising and circulation sales, according to a memo to staff.

A yearlong freeze on pay increases begun in February 2009 also will be extended by at least 90 days, the newspaper’s publisher, David Hunke, said today in the memo.

“National advertising revenues in general were still down from the previous year as were paid advertising pages at USA Today,” Hunke said in the memo. “Circulation sales continued to be lower” in the fourth quarter.

Gannett said in December it would require most local newspaper employees to take five days of unpaid leave this quarter, though USA Today employees originally weren’t affected. The McLean, Virginia-based publisher enforced two weeks of unpaid leave for many workers in 2009.

Ed Cassidy, a spokesman for USA Today, confirmed the memo in an e-mail.

Circulation for USA Today, the second-largest by distribution, fell 17 percent from a year earlier to 1.9 million on an average weekday in the six months through September, according to the latest data from the Audit Bureau of Circulations. That compares with an 11 percent plunge industrywide.

The company last year posted a 28 percent decline in publishing advertising revenue to $2.97 billion, according to a Feb. 1 statement. It didn’t break out USA Today’s ad sales.

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Hunke said in a separate statement today that USA Today has hired Gordon Lee Jones as new senior vice president of advertising, replacing Brett Wilson, who stepped down last year. Jones previously was senior vice president of sales and marketing for Cablevision Systems Corp.’s Newsday.

In December, Gannett said it couldn’t rule out additional unpaid leave time this year. Robin Pence, a Gannet spokeswoman, said in an e-mail message that USA Today’s action today was not part of a larger strategy.

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