USA TODAY Co.
USA TODAY Co. closed 2025 with a small but symbolically significant return to profit, $1.7 million in net income attributable to the company, compared to a $26.4 million loss in 2024. Revenue, however, kept falling. At $2.302 billion, total revenues were down 8% year on year, continuing a multi-year contraction driven by the structural decline of print advertising.
The profit swing was a story of the income statement getting cleaner: restructuring charges dropped 52%, asset impairments collapsed 95% from an unusually high 2024 base, and a cluster of non-recurring items swung hard in the company’s favour, including a $16.8 million net gain from the sale of the Austin American-Statesman and an $11.8 million pension settlement gain. Strip those out, and the underlying earnings picture is considerably thinner.
The company also made meaningful progress on debt reduction, directing $139.8 million to financing activities, mostly debt repayment, even as operating cash flow improved to $114.4 million. The trade-off: year-end cash fell to $97.8 million from $116.2 million.
FY2025 vs FY2024 — Selected Financials (USD millions)
| Metric | FY2025 | FY2024 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total revenues | $2,302.2 | $2,509.3 | −8% |
| Integration & reorganization costs | $31.6 | $66.2 | −52% |
| Asset impairments | $2.2 | $46.6 | −95% |
| (Gain) loss on asset sales, net | ($16.8) | $1.1 | Swing |
| Other (income) expense, net | ($26.3) | $19.0 | Swing |
| Interest expense | $97.2 | $104.7 | −7% |
| Net income (loss) attributable to USA TODAY Co. | $1.7 | ($26.4) | Swing to profit |
| Cash from operating activities | $114.4 | $100.3 | +14% |
| Year-end cash (incl. restricted) | $97.8 | $116.2 | −16% |
Segment performance (USD millions)
| Segment | FY2025 Revenue | FY2024 Revenue | FY2025 Adj. EBITDA | FY2024 Adj. EBITDA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USA TODAY Media | $1,743.6 | $1,938.4 | $181.1 | $202.7 |
| Newsquest | $238.3 | $239.3 | $56.9 | $53.4 |
| LocaliQ | $448.3 | $477.8 | $46.3 | $43.7 |
| Total | — | — | $284.3 | $299.8 |
The brightest spot in the segment picture was Newsquest, the company’s UK publishing arm, where adjusted EBITDA rose slightly to $56.9 million. USA TODAY Media, the core U.S. publishing business, remained under pressure, with revenue falling from $1.94 billion to $1.74 billion and adjusted EBITDA declining from $202.7 million to $181.1 million. Management pointed to Q4 2025 as “one of our strongest performances in recent years” on same-store digital revenue growth, a signal worth watching in 2026 reporting.
USA TODAY Co. (NYSE: TDAY) is the largest newspaper publisher in the United States by number of titles, operating a diversified media portfolio that spans national and local journalism, digital marketing services, and live events. The company is better known by its previous corporate identity, Gannett Co., Inc., which it carried for over a century before rebranding in November 2025.
Headquartered in New York City, the rebrand from Gannett to USA TODAY Co. took effect on November 18, 2025, with the stock ticker simultaneously changing from GCI to TDAY on the New York Stock Exchange. Management framed the change as a strategic alignment with the company’s most recognised masthead and a signal of its commitment to nonpartisan journalism at a time when U.S. media faces intensifying political pressure. CEO Mike Reed described it as embracing a brand “committed to delivering fact-based news, unbiased coverage and essential content that meets audiences in the center.”
USA TODAY Co. operates through three reportable business segments.
USA TODAY Media is the largest by revenue, encompassing the flagship national newspaper and over 200 local U.S. publications. Revenue comes from print and digital advertising, subscriptions, and content licensing. The segment continues to face structural headwinds from the decline of print advertising, with the company’s bet on digital subscriptions still in the process of offsetting that erosion.
Newsquest is a wholly owned UK subsidiary with over 150 regional news brands. It provides geographic diversification and has proven more resilient than the U.S. operations in recent years.
LocaliQ is a digital marketing solutions business serving small and medium-sized businesses with paid search management, display advertising, social media marketing, and website services. It is strategically intertwined with the publishing segments, the USA TODAY Media and Newsquest sales teams sell bundled marketing solutions to local businesses, with fulfilment routed through LocaliQ. This creates significant intersegment transactions ($134 million in 2025) that are eliminated in consolidated reporting.
The company also operates USA TODAY NETWORK Ventures, described as the largest media-owned events business in the United States, with properties including the Hot Chocolate Run series, RAGBRAI (an iconic bicycle ride across Iowa), and the USA TODAY High School Sports Awards.
Debt and Capital Structure
The debt load inherited from the 2019 GateHouse merger remains the defining constraint on USA TODAY Co.’s financial flexibility. Interest expense consumed $97.2 million in 2025, a substantial call on operating cash flow. The company has been methodically paying it down: in 2025 it repurchased $14.0 million of principal of its 2027 Notes at 105% of par.
The first significant move of 2026 reinforced the dual-track approach of deleveraging while selectively investing. On January 31, 2026, the company completed the acquisition of The Detroit News, financing it partly with $15.0 million of incremental debt under its 2029 Term Loan Facility. That deal signals management’s view that certain local markets still justify investment even as the broader footprint is rationalised elsewhere.
Digital Strategy and Audience
In 2025, the flagship USA TODAY reported approximately 2 million digital subscribers, placing it among the four largest digital news publications in the United States by online circulation. Print circulation has declined to around 103,600 subscribers, a fraction of its historic peak.
The company’s digital strategy runs on two tracks: growing direct reader revenue through subscriptions to its national and local brands, and monetising audience reach through LocaliQ’s SMB marketing services. A third stream comes via live events, where USA TODAY NETWORK Ventures generates revenue that is less directly tied to advertising market cycles.
Competitive Context
USA TODAY Co. occupies a paradoxical position in American media: the largest newspaper publisher in the country and one of the most financially stretched. Scale has not been a durable competitive advantage as print advertising migrates to Google, Meta, and programmatic networks.
For national audiences, it competes against the New York Times Company and News Corp (Wall Street Journal), both of which have built stronger digital subscription businesses from more premium-positioned audiences. For local news, its titles compete with television, radio, and a growing nonprofit local news sector.
The company is also involved in ongoing litigation against Google over digital advertising practices, a suit that reflects the wider industry’s frustration with big tech’s dominance over digital ad revenues. Separately, the 2025 rebrand came partly in response to political pressure: President Trump sued the Des Moines Register and its pollster, the paper is a Gannett title, following a 2024 pre-election poll. Management positioned the USA TODAY Co. name as a statement of the company’s commitment to nonpartisan, fact-based journalism.
Outlook for 2026
The core question for USA TODAY Co. in 2026 is whether digital revenue growth can be sustained and broadened, from the flagship paper to the local title network, while the company continues to reduce debt. Several items that helped the 2025 income statement look better are by definition non-repeatable: asset sale gains require assets to sell, pension settlements are discrete events, and “other income” swings don’t arrive on schedule.
The durable positives are improving operating cash flow, continued deleveraging, the Q4 2025 digital revenue inflection, and Newsquest’s steady profitability. The durable negatives are an 8% revenue decline, contracting segment adjusted EBITDA in the largest segment, and a print business that continues to shrink faster than digital can compensate.