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The NY Times gets 2/3rd of its revenue from subscribers; advertisers are not their prime customers. Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/new-york-times-ad-r

The NY Times gets 2/3rd of its revenue from subscribers; advertisers are not their prime customers. Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/new-york-times-ad-revenue-to-fall-at-least-50percent-in-the-second-quarter.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/new-york-times-ad-revenue-to...

actuator 6y ago
They are not just competing for ads but even eyeballs or user loyalty. The traditional consumption for news was through you reading a single newspaper/magazine. In a way you were tied to it, digitally this would work if you come and consume it from the media house itself. But platforms like FB/Twitter disrupt this. You have suddenly news from all different sources and this might lead to lack of attachment to a particular media house. So a user might not bother subscribing or might cancel his existing subscription finding that he consumes the news anyway from different sources. This is scary for media houses as this makes them a commodity and FB/Twitter takes place of the central distribution source which they so happily sat at. I would agree with OP in that there is a big conflict of interest.
manfredo 6y ago
Because the internet gutted its ad revenue. Back in 2000 the paper's strength was in its advertising: https://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/14/business/times-co-profit-is-up-35-on-strength-in-advertising.html https://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/14/business/times-co-profit-... Over the course of the 2000s, the stock price of the NYT would drop to less than one quarter of what it was in 2000, and only start to climb back up in late 2016 and early 2017.
igravious 6y ago
I get the impression that you volunteer this information to provide a counterpoint to my observation whereas (when you think about it) from another perspective this could buttress it.

4 ms·

The NY Times gets 2/3rd of its revenue from subscribers; advertisers are not their prime customers. Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/new-york-times-ad-r

by marcandre 6y ago

actuator 6y ago
They are not just competing for ads but even eyeballs or user loyalty. The traditional consumption for news was through you reading a single newspaper/magazine. In a way you were tied to it, digitally this would work if you come and consume it from the media house itself. But platforms like FB/Twitter disrupt this. You have suddenly news from all different sources and this might lead to lack of attachment to a particular media house. So a user might not bother subscribing or might cancel his existing subscription finding that he consumes the news anyway from different sources. This is scary for media houses as this makes them a commodity and FB/Twitter takes place of the central distribution source which they so happily sat at. I would agree with OP in that there is a big conflict of interest.
manfredo 6y ago
Because the internet gutted its ad revenue. Back in 2000 the paper's strength was in its advertising: https://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/14/business/times-co-profit-is-up-35-on-strength-in-advertising.html https://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/14/business/times-co-profit-... Over the course of the 2000s, the stock price of the NYT would drop to less than one quarter of what it was in 2000, and only start to climb back up in late 2016 and early 2017.
igravious 6y ago
I get the impression that you volunteer this information to provide a counterpoint to my observation whereas (when you think about it) from another perspective this could buttress it.