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> NYT "isn't about clicks" while most of the news industry is drowning. No need to generalize from the state of the media as an industry; NYT is a public compa

by paulgb 6y ago

> NYT "isn't about clicks" while most of the news industry is drowning. No need to generalize from the state of the media as an industry; NYT is a public company so their balance sheet is public. Here's their latest 10-Q, doesn't look like drowning to me. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000071691/000007169120000009/nyt329202010-qdocument.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000071691/000007169...

eqvinox 6y ago
I said I was lazy, didn't I? :) Feel free to ignore that item. … But actually… that sheet also says that $51 million of their revenue is from digital advertising, down from $55.5 million a year ago. It's 11.5% of their total revenue, down from 12.7%. Not a huge problem but… it's still a business consideration. And let's not forget zest and sensationalism can sell subscriptions and print media too. (Publishing the full name would at least have counted as "zest" IMHO, if not full-on sensationalism.)
- paulgb 6y ago
  Ad revenue is down but subscriptions and total revenue are up -- so doesn't that go counter to the "did it for clicks" narrative? My (admittedly simple) model of the media industry is that clickbait drives ad revenue, quality journalism drives subscriptions.
  - eqvinox 6y ago
    I totally agree your logic makes sense too. My model was going along the lines of, "hey, our digital ads are down a few million" -> manager telling the assembled team "hey let's try and get the ad revenue back up, all please set the dial just a little bit higher!" Not even suggesting malice there, just my imagination :) [Ed. add:] It's also that I don't even think Metz was necessarily aware the name would be such a big deal. It's very much normal practice to name people, and even if they saw that Scott was privacy conscious it might not have registered properly and just seemed like a "little bit of extra zest." However, IMHO they just should have backed off after it became apparent to them.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    But then they still get a factor of 8.8 more revenue from digital advertising than digital subscriptions. edit: Compare digital advertising to digital subscriptions, not overall subscriptions
    - paulgb 6y ago
      Are we looking at the same numbers? See page 3, subscription revenue is ~2.7x ad revenue.
      - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        Oops, I see what I did. I was comparing digital subscription revenue to overall ad revenue. Comparing digital subscription revenue to digital ad revenue is "only" a factor of 8.8 rather than 18 (because just over half the ad revenue is print). Note that newspapers make little if any profit from print subscriptions in themselves, because they're little better than breakeven with the cost of printing and delivery. The real profit has always come from the advertising. Digital subscriptions are something new in that they're actually making money from subscription revenues instead of just using them to cover unit costs, but they're currently still tiny.
  - malandrew 6y ago
    > quality journalism drives subscriptions. A more effective paywall drives subscriptions. Once you have a paywall, subscriptions are as much about clicks as ads. I don't have a subscription myself, but I have considered paying for one because acquaintances with a low bar for quality occasionally want to share and discuss something behind the paywall and I can't rely on all of them to know how to print a pdf and share that with me. As subscribers witness the quality decline, they'll cancel their subscriptions. The NY Times today is not the NY Times of A.M. Rosenthal.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > But actually… that sheet also says that $51 million of their revenue is from digital advertising, down from $55.5 million a year ago. It's 11.5% of their total revenue, down from 12.7%. Not a huge problem but… it's still a business consideration. But it's a business consideration that exactly supports the claim that NYT isn't about clicks and, in fact, that dependence on click-driven ad revenue is a declining focus of NYT and similar media outlets.
  - zaroth 6y ago
    You can’t make that conclusion from the evidence presented. The fact that ad revenue is declining doesn’t tell us that they intentionally moved focus away from clicks. As another matter, all those subscriptions grant access to their website content. More clicks on their site probably lead to more new subscriptions, and better retention of existing subscribers. To the extent that clicks lead to subscriptions, they are undoubtably all about the clicks.
thu2111 6y ago
That isn't a refutation - the NYT is doing well whilst most of the news industry is drowning. In fact there has even been an article in the New York Times arguing that the New York Times financial strength and power may be bad for news: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/01/business/media/ben-smith-journalism-news-publishers-local.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/01/business/media/ben-smith-...

by paulgb 6y ago

eqvinox 6y ago

I said I was lazy, didn't I? :) Feel free to ignore that item. … But actually… that sheet also says that $51 million of their revenue is from digital advertising, down from $55.5 million a year ago. It's 11.5% of their total revenue, down from 12.7%. Not a huge problem but… it's still a business consideration. And let's not forget zest and sensationalism can sell subscriptions and print media too. (Publishing the full name would at least have counted as "zest" IMHO, if not full-on sensationalism.)

paulgb 6y ago
Ad revenue is down but subscriptions and total revenue are up -- so doesn't that go counter to the "did it for clicks" narrative? My (admittedly simple) model of the media industry is that clickbait drives ad revenue, quality journalism drives subscriptions.
- eqvinox 6y ago
  I totally agree your logic makes sense too. My model was going along the lines of, "hey, our digital ads are down a few million" -> manager telling the assembled team "hey let's try and get the ad revenue back up, all please set the dial just a little bit higher!" Not even suggesting malice there, just my imagination :) [Ed. add:] It's also that I don't even think Metz was necessarily aware the name would be such a big deal. It's very much normal practice to name people, and even if they saw that Scott was privacy conscious it might not have registered properly and just seemed like a "little bit of extra zest." However, IMHO they just should have backed off after it became apparent to them.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  But then they still get a factor of 8.8 more revenue from digital advertising than digital subscriptions. edit: Compare digital advertising to digital subscriptions, not overall subscriptions
  - paulgb 6y ago
    Are we looking at the same numbers? See page 3, subscription revenue is ~2.7x ad revenue.
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      Oops, I see what I did. I was comparing digital subscription revenue to overall ad revenue. Comparing digital subscription revenue to digital ad revenue is "only" a factor of 8.8 rather than 18 (because just over half the ad revenue is print). Note that newspapers make little if any profit from print subscriptions in themselves, because they're little better than breakeven with the cost of printing and delivery. The real profit has always come from the advertising. Digital subscriptions are something new in that they're actually making money from subscription revenues instead of just using them to cover unit costs, but they're currently still tiny.
- malandrew 6y ago
  > quality journalism drives subscriptions. A more effective paywall drives subscriptions. Once you have a paywall, subscriptions are as much about clicks as ads. I don't have a subscription myself, but I have considered paying for one because acquaintances with a low bar for quality occasionally want to share and discuss something behind the paywall and I can't rely on all of them to know how to print a pdf and share that with me. As subscribers witness the quality decline, they'll cancel their subscriptions. The NY Times today is not the NY Times of A.M. Rosenthal.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> But actually… that sheet also says that $51 million of their revenue is from digital advertising, down from $55.5 million a year ago. It's 11.5% of their total revenue, down from 12.7%. Not a huge problem but… it's still a business consideration. But it's a business consideration that exactly supports the claim that NYT isn't about clicks and, in fact, that dependence on click-driven ad revenue is a declining focus of NYT and similar media outlets.
- zaroth 6y ago
  You can’t make that conclusion from the evidence presented. The fact that ad revenue is declining doesn’t tell us that they intentionally moved focus away from clicks. As another matter, all those subscriptions grant access to their website content. More clicks on their site probably lead to more new subscriptions, and better retention of existing subscribers. To the extent that clicks lead to subscriptions, they are undoubtably all about the clicks.

thu2111 6y ago

That isn't a refutation - the NYT is doing well whilst most of the news industry is drowning. In fact there has even been an article in the New York Times arguing that the New York Times financial strength and power may be bad for news: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/01/business/media/ben-smith-journalism-news-publishers-local.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/01/business/media/ben-smith-...