Print Unit Sales Up 7.9% in Early October (publishersweekly.com)

There’s a question that’s been asked since the early beginnings of digital communication over 30 years ago. That question has been the focus of many debates, discussions, articles and research papers, as well as arguments between billions of parents and their children all over the world. It’s preoccupied governments, academics, companies, organisations and brands, and will continue to do so for a long time to come. The question is simple: Is digital harming our health? The amount of digital information that’s being created, consumed and shared every day is staggering. In just one minute of an average day, Google receives over 4,000,000 search queries, YouTube users upload 72 hours of new video, Facebook users share 2,460,000 pieces of content, and Apple users download 48,000 apps. By the time you will have finished reading this article, those numbers will have increased further. All this content consumption brings with it a host of potential health issues for the user. Anxiety, depression, addiction, isolation, narcissism, all are becoming more and more common, particularly amongst the young. Click Read More below for additional information.

If you’re a commercial mailer of flats and periodicals, brace yourself. Customers are facing an unexpected and steep increase in USPS mailing rates sometime this summer — even while service standards remain miserably low. The first indication that something was seriously wrong with operations at the USPS came last July, when newly appointed PG Louis DeJoy changed trucking regulations. On-time mail deliveries plummeted. It was so bad that a Washington DC District Court judge ruled they must reverse the changes in October and file daily paperwork with their progress. Now, the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) tells us to expect an additional rate increase this summer of anywhere between 5.5% for first-class and up to 7.5% for marketing flats and periodicals. (That’s on top of recent rate changes that went into effect last month.) More at source: https://freeportpress.com/serious-questions-around-the-usps-and-rates/

Total reported sales for the fourth quarter of 2017 were $2.6 billion compared to $2.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2016, a decrease of 5%. Sales for the full year 2017 were $10.2 billion, a decline of 7% compared to the prior year. Fourth quarter and full year 2016 results benefited from an additional 53rd week sales of approximately $143 million and have been removed from our adjusted sales change below. In the fourth quarter of 2017, Office Depot reported operating income of $59 million. The Company recognized a net loss from continuing operations in the fourth quarter of 2017 of $48 million, or $0.09 per diluted share, resulting from a net tax expense of approximately $68 million associated with changes to the Company’s U.S. deferred tax assets and tax valuation allowance due to recent tax law reform. Click Read More below for additional information.