Audit | USAT by the numbers: 36 pages, 45 ads

First-quarter advertising revenue fell 11% at Gannett's biggest daily, and circulation dived 13.6% at March 31 from a year before -- further pinching efforts to ramp up ad sales. This is my third audit of USA Today's page count and advertising; the first two are here and here.

Stopping once more by my local Starbucks, at 1:15 p.m. PT today, I found one copy of USA Today hidden under two copies of yesterday's edition. USAT has been sold at 6,500 U.S. Starbucks since March 15.

The audit
I counted pages and advertisements. I did not include what appeared to be house ads. I did, however, count even the smallest, classified-like display ads. Here's what I found:

A section, 10 pages, seven ads: Subway, Carved Creations, Amtrak, Subway, Mercedes-Benz, ProFlowers, Global Travel & Tourism Summit.

Money, eight pages, eight ads: Sprint, JP Morgan Chase, Franchising Today (5 small ads), Amazon Kindle.

Life, 10 pages, 28 ads: 1-800 FLOWERS, McCormick & Schmicks, How to Make Millions, Credit Card Relief, American Tax Relief, Heritage for the Blind, Bose, Supercuts, US Oncology, Pella, Marketplace Today (18 small ads).

Sports, eight pages, two ads: ESPN, Progressive.

[Image: Newseum]