By Gannett
Report updated May 12, 2026
Times Record News
For local community members and news readers seeking both regional coverage and access to the broader USA TODAY network.
Times Record News is a challenged news app that is free with in-app purchases. With a 4.0/5 rating from 413 reviews, it faces significant user friction. Users particularly appreciate responsive design and fresh news delivery provide a reliable daily information source for local readers, though frequent application crashes and loading failures prevent users from accessing articles and the digital newspaper remains a common concern.
What is Times Record News?
Times Record News is a regional news application providing local journalism and eNewspaper access for community members on iOS and Android.
Users hire the app to maintain connection with local events and obituaries, but technical instability forces them to seek alternatives for reliable information delivery.
Current Momentum
v8.9
- Ships stability updates for bug fixes.
- Maintains content parity with print editions.
Active Nemesis
NewsBreak: Local News & Alerts
By Particle Media
Other Rivals
7-Day Rank Pulse 🇺🇸
NewsNo ranking data
Rating Pulse 🇺🇸
Recent User MoodAI-powered deep analysis surfacing high-signal insights. Still in beta, accuracy improves daily. For informational purposes only.
What makes this app unique?
What Does It Look Like?
How Is The App's Momentum Right Now?
Loading...
What Are The Key Features?
Digital replica of the print edition accessible on mobile devices
Push alerts for breaking news, sports scores, and weather tailored to user interests
Cross-publication access to USA TODAY and over 200 local eNewspapers
How much does it cost?
- Free tier with limited article sampling
- Subscription-based premium access for full content and eNewspaper
Freemium model uses a sampling gate to convert casual readers into monthly or annual subscribers.
Who Built It?
Gannett
Providing hyper-local news and sports coverage to US communities through digital-first newspaper replicas and real-time reporting.
Portfolio
13
Apps
Who is Gannett?
Gannett operates a massive hub-and-spoke model, leveraging the USA TODAY Network to distribute localized content through hundreds of individual city-branded apps rather than a single national aggregator. Their moat lies in deep-rooted local journalistic infrastructure and 'eNewspaper' digital replicas that transition traditional print subscribers to mobile. The high release volume suggests a standardized platform architecture where technical updates and ad-management features are rolled out simultaneously across the entire regional portfolio.
Who is Gannett for?
- Local residents
- Sports fans
- Community stakeholders seeking region-specific investigative reporting
- Digital newspaper replicas
Portfolio momentum
With 423 updates across 201 active apps in the last six months, the publisher maintains an aggressive maintenance and feature-parity schedule across its regional network.
What other apps does Gannett make?
What do users think recently?
High confidence · 58 reviews analyzed · Based on 58 reviews. Signal may be noisy.
How did the latest release land?
What is the recent mood?
Recent user voice shows a frustrated sentiment. Users appreciate responsive design and fresh news delivery provide a reliable daily information source for local readers, but report frequent application crashes and loading failures prevent users from accessing articles and the digital newspaper and subscription authentication errors prevent paid users from accessing content despite active account status.
What Users Love
What Frustrates Users
What Users Want
What is the competitive landscape for Times Record News?
How's The News Market?
**Pricing Strategy**: Freemium model utilizing a sampling gate to drive monthly or annual subscriptions. **Target Audience**: Local community members seeking regional coverage and broader national news access.
The rivals identified
The Nemesis
Head to Head
The target app must pivot toward community-centric engagement features to counter NewsBreak's algorithmic dominance in the local news space.
What sets Times Record News apart
Provides high-quality, verified journalism from professional reporters rather than relying on aggregated or unverified community sources.
Maintains a consistent, brand-aligned editorial voice that builds long-term trust with the local community.
What's NewsBreak: Local News & Alerts's Edge
Delivers a significantly higher volume of hyper-local alerts by scraping diverse sources across the entire region.
Leverages a sophisticated recommendation algorithm that personalizes the news feed based on individual user engagement patterns.
Contenders
Features 24/7 live video streaming capabilities that keep users engaged within the app for longer sessions.
Maintains a global newsroom infrastructure that provides instant coverage of major events before local outlets can react.
Offers a highly polished, interactive reading experience that includes data visualizations and multimedia storytelling formats.
Maintains a high release cadence, frequently iterating on the app's navigation and personalized reading recommendations.
Integrates non-news content like games and cooking to increase daily active usage and app stickiness.
Provides a seamless, ad-light reading interface that prioritizes user experience over aggressive monetization tactics.
AP News
★4.6 (359.5K)The Associated Press
⚡A direct competitor in providing factual, unbiased reporting that serves as the backbone for many local news outlets.
Focuses on a clean, minimalist interface that prioritizes speed and readability for users seeking objective facts.
Provides a 'Top News' summary feature that allows users to catch up on global events in under two minutes.
Peers
Uses AI-driven 'Full Coverage' features to provide multiple perspectives on a single news story.
Deeply integrated into the Android ecosystem, providing a frictionless discovery path for mobile users.
Native integration into the iOS operating system ensures high visibility and seamless user onboarding.
Curated editorial collections provide a premium, magazine-like experience that differentiates it from standard news feeds.
Provides specialized market data and real-time financial tracking tools not found in general news apps.
Focuses on high-value, exclusive insights that justify a premium subscription model for professional users.
The Guardian - US & World News
★4.6 (405.3K)Guardian News and Media Limited
⚡Offers a distinct editorial perspective and a reader-funded model that builds strong community loyalty.
Employs a unique 'support us' monetization model that fosters a sense of community ownership among readers.
Features a highly readable, long-form journalism layout that prioritizes deep-dive content over clickbait headlines.
New Kids on the Block
Enables direct monetization for creators, shifting the power dynamic from the publisher to the individual writer.
Focuses on long-form, newsletter-style content that creates a more intimate and personal connection with the audience.
Utilizes real-time, location-based push notifications to alert users to immediate safety threats in their vicinity.
Crowdsources live video footage from the scene, providing a raw and immediate perspective that traditional news lacks.
The outtake for Times Record News
Strengths to defend, gaps to attack
Core Strengths
- USA TODAY network access provides content depth beyond local-only competitors.
Critical Frictions
- Authentication loops and crashes on the latest version drive subscriber churn.
Growth Levers
- Obituary section management improvements could increase daily utility for the core local demographic.
Market Threats
- NewsBreak's hyper-local aggregation model siphons traffic from traditional publisher apps.
What are the next best moves?
Rebuild authentication logic because subscription errors are the top-cited churn reason → reduce subscriber support volume
Sentiment analysis identifies subscription authentication as a high-frequency complaint preventing paid access.
Trade-off: Delay the planned UI refresh for the obituary section — stability is the primary revenue blocker.
Audit crash logs for article loading failures because users report abandonment due to instability → increase session duration
High-frequency crash reports are the primary driver of negative sentiment in the latest version.
Trade-off: Pause new feature development for USA TODAY network integration — technical hygiene is the immediate priority.
A counter-intuitive read
The app's technical instability is a more significant threat to its survival than the competitive pressure from NewsBreak, as users will tolerate inferior aggregation but not broken access.
Feature Gaps vs Competitors
- Hyper-local safety alerts (available in NewsBreak but absent here)
- Live video streaming (available in CNN but absent here)
Key Takeaways
The app offers strong local content value but fails on basic technical reliability, so the PM must prioritize fixing authentication and crash loops to prevent further subscriber churn.
Where Is It Heading?
Declining
The local news market is consolidating around platforms that offer high-frequency, algorithmically-driven updates. Times Record News remains exposed due to technical debt, so the PM must stabilize the core reading experience before attempting to compete on content volume.
Persistent authentication errors in the latest release prevent paid users from accessing content, leading to immediate churn risk.
Frequent application crashes during article reading sessions erode user trust, which compounds the existing negative sentiment trend.