4 ms·

It's getting harder to buy this line as their financials keep getting better and better. They have nearly 5 million subscribers and aiming to hit 10mil by 2025.

It's getting harder to buy this line as their financials keep getting better and better. They have nearly 5 million subscribers and aiming to hit 10mil by 2025. The advertising revenue isn't growing much, but subscriptions are. https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2020-02-06/ny-times-publishers-4q-profit-grows-as-it-adds-subscribers https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2020-02-06/ny-...

sumedh 6y ago
Which could also mean that whatever they are doing when they "fell down" is working for them.
tannhauser23 6y ago
It supports the OP's point. NY Times has switched from a revenues model to a subscriber model, which means they're strongly incentivized to publish articles that reinforce the worldviews of their paying customers. Before, when they were dependent on advertising, they needed to be objective and represent all viewpoints because they needed to reach as large an audience as possible.
- pdxandi 6y ago
  Why would subscriptions over advertising change their target audience? It seems that either way they are trying to get as many eyeballs as possible. Getting repeat subscriptions versus repeat page views (or whatever the ad revenue metric) seems irrelevant to me.
  - tlear 6y ago
    Because of the publish something that does not say Orange Man Bad they will loose a bunch of their subscribers. Getting subscribers is much harder then loosing them. Let’s say they covered Hunter Biden scandal. How much would that cost them? Quite a bit I bet
    - KSteffensen 6y ago
      If that's the case there is no way to save the US. Everyone will keep screaming at each other based on the propaganda they buy into until the guns come out. There has to be a way to present alternate ways of interpreting facts without immediately getting accused of partisan censorship. US media can't even agree on what the facts are without the partisan accusation coming out. How to rebuild institutional trust once it's gone?
      - intended 6y ago
        Not under the current paradigms for media and news. Other countries do somewhat better (Germany) but they too face rising nationalist movements. The issue, amazingly, is Fox News and it’s ilk. Yet, the conversation here is the NYT. This is a problem on two grounds 1) people talk about what they know. So like many discussions people nerd out on what they have information on. 2) The issue of Correlation vs causation in Fox’s impact on its viewers is pushed away for another day, when things are worse. Is conservative pandering media causing a break from reality, or are they simply doing what they need to when dealing with their audience. Or perhaps both? Is having someone like Rupert Murdoch and his children running the show a good thing ? How could this be prevented ?
        xab31 6y ago
        > The issue, amazingly, is Fox News and it’s ilk. Yet, the conversation here is the NYT. That is because practically everyone on HN agrees Fox is bad, biased, etc. Therefore the debate is going to be implicitly about how bad the NYT is in relation to Fox. A related factor is that it's hard for an educated person to get suckered by Fox. There are too many garish infographics and obvious nutjobs. It just does not give even a superficial impression of being Legitimate and Unbiased and Supported by the Best Experts. But the NYT does, and that's what makes it more dangerous. If I go into "Uncle Cletus's Homeopathy Clinick", I kind of deserve whatever I get. But if another con man has a convincingly faked (or even real) Harvard M.D., then sets about poisoning lots of people through incompetence and apathy and greed, then everyone insists it can't possibly be his fault because he has an M.D. from Harvard... ...you can see why "Uncle Cletus is the real problem here" can seem nonresponsive. It is not even especially obvious to me which is "worse", "Uncle Cletus" or Fake M.D., even if we grant that Fake M.D. is somewhat better at medicine. I know I personally could get suckered by the latter but not the former, making the latter more dangerous to me.
- friendlybus 6y ago
  Their revenue isn't declining, so the argument can't be based on their survival as a company. They are growing and there's multiple ways to grow. There's no excuse for being 'fallen' anymore.
- sriram_malhar 6y ago
  I think it is the other way around. There are fewer advertisers than subscribers, so the publication's strategy tends to get optimized towards keeping those few(er) people happy.
- vkou 6y ago
  > Before, when they were dependent on advertising, they needed to be objective and represent all viewpoints because they needed to reach as large an audience as possible. No, they needed to represent viewpoints that were palatable to their advertisers. A US-centric, neo-liberal world-view does not really 'represent all viewpoints'.

sumedh 6y ago

Which could also mean that whatever they are doing when they "fell down" is working for them.

tannhauser23 6y ago

It supports the OP's point. NY Times has switched from a revenues model to a subscriber model, which means they're strongly incentivized to publish articles that reinforce the worldviews of their paying customers. Before, when they were dependent on advertising, they needed to be objective and represent all viewpoints because they needed to reach as large an audience as possible.

pdxandi 6y ago
Why would subscriptions over advertising change their target audience? It seems that either way they are trying to get as many eyeballs as possible. Getting repeat subscriptions versus repeat page views (or whatever the ad revenue metric) seems irrelevant to me.
- tlear 6y ago
  Because of the publish something that does not say Orange Man Bad they will loose a bunch of their subscribers. Getting subscribers is much harder then loosing them. Let’s say they covered Hunter Biden scandal. How much would that cost them? Quite a bit I bet
  - KSteffensen 6y ago
    If that's the case there is no way to save the US. Everyone will keep screaming at each other based on the propaganda they buy into until the guns come out. There has to be a way to present alternate ways of interpreting facts without immediately getting accused of partisan censorship. US media can't even agree on what the facts are without the partisan accusation coming out. How to rebuild institutional trust once it's gone?
    - intended 6y ago
      Not under the current paradigms for media and news. Other countries do somewhat better (Germany) but they too face rising nationalist movements. The issue, amazingly, is Fox News and it’s ilk. Yet, the conversation here is the NYT. This is a problem on two grounds 1) people talk about what they know. So like many discussions people nerd out on what they have information on. 2) The issue of Correlation vs causation in Fox’s impact on its viewers is pushed away for another day, when things are worse. Is conservative pandering media causing a break from reality, or are they simply doing what they need to when dealing with their audience. Or perhaps both? Is having someone like Rupert Murdoch and his children running the show a good thing ? How could this be prevented ?
      - xab31 6y ago
        > The issue, amazingly, is Fox News and it’s ilk. Yet, the conversation here is the NYT. That is because practically everyone on HN agrees Fox is bad, biased, etc. Therefore the debate is going to be implicitly about how bad the NYT is in relation to Fox. A related factor is that it's hard for an educated person to get suckered by Fox. There are too many garish infographics and obvious nutjobs. It just does not give even a superficial impression of being Legitimate and Unbiased and Supported by the Best Experts. But the NYT does, and that's what makes it more dangerous. If I go into "Uncle Cletus's Homeopathy Clinick", I kind of deserve whatever I get. But if another con man has a convincingly faked (or even real) Harvard M.D., then sets about poisoning lots of people through incompetence and apathy and greed, then everyone insists it can't possibly be his fault because he has an M.D. from Harvard... ...you can see why "Uncle Cletus is the real problem here" can seem nonresponsive. It is not even especially obvious to me which is "worse", "Uncle Cletus" or Fake M.D., even if we grant that Fake M.D. is somewhat better at medicine. I know I personally could get suckered by the latter but not the former, making the latter more dangerous to me.
friendlybus 6y ago
Their revenue isn't declining, so the argument can't be based on their survival as a company. They are growing and there's multiple ways to grow. There's no excuse for being 'fallen' anymore.
sriram_malhar 6y ago
I think it is the other way around. There are fewer advertisers than subscribers, so the publication's strategy tends to get optimized towards keeping those few(er) people happy.
vkou 6y ago
> Before, when they were dependent on advertising, they needed to be objective and represent all viewpoints because they needed to reach as large an audience as possible. No, they needed to represent viewpoints that were palatable to their advertisers. A US-centric, neo-liberal world-view does not really 'represent all viewpoints'.