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This article, and many other similar to it, completely miss the point. (Or perhaps, beg the question we are all waiting for an answer to). I don't know if anyo

This article, and many other similar to it, completely miss the point. (Or perhaps, beg the question we are all waiting for an answer to). I don't know if anyone ever debated the notion that paywalls will produce revenue, and it's great that the NYT earns more from its paywall than many industry analysts expected. But the fact is, even at the revenue levels that it may produce in upcoming years, it still costs more to produce that content than people are willing to pay for it. This is the big hold-up with journalism. Even if people will spend a billion dollars a year purchasing your newspaper, if it costs you two billion dollars to produce it you're screwed.

personlurking 14y ago
Not to take the focus off of your point, but the phrase "beg the question" caught my eye due to reading about it recently. I recommend the section below. Cheers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question#Modern_usage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question#Modern_usa...
- joe_the_user 14y ago
  The thing is that "begs the question" has such nice ring to it even when used incorrectly. I'd say most people mean "the question remains..", "...fails to answer the initial question" or "...leaves the question X unanswered" when they say "...begs the question". Unfortunately, none of these more correct phrase have the same flourish. What to do...
- austenallred 14y ago
  Aw, man. I wonder how often I've said that incorrectly. Thank you!
saurik 14y ago
The NYT has existed for a sufficiently long enough time that they could not possibly have been losing money. Now, their revenue from subscriptions is apparently going up after than their revenue from advertisements is falling. Shouldn't that indicate that they are still cash flow positive? Alternatively, are you saying their costs are going up dramatically to compensate for this increase in revenue, and that, in fact, they are now losing money and will soon die?
- thefreeman 14y ago
  > The NYT has existed for a sufficiently long enough time that they could not possibly have been losing money. What?
  - saurik 14y ago
    So, to verify: you believe that the NYT has managed to go over 150 years in the red? Maybe propped up by an insanely large funding round, with an extremely low burn rate? austenallred's contention is that somehow the NYT costs more to produce than people are willing to pay, and that this is an endemic problem with journalism, not just some recent problem with a website (and, as I point out, it can't be, as with the website NYT's subscription revenue is up in over-compensation to the amount their advertising revenue is down).
    - austenallred 14y ago
      No one is contending that the NYT has never generated a profit. It has been very, very successful on the past, however with the advent of the Internet came a lot of cheap and free content, making the average consumer less willing to pay for content, while simultaneously creating cheaper, more targeted avenues for advertising. Nearly every newspaper in the United States sees that by switching to free, digital content, they only earn a small fraction of the revenue that they did from the more heavily based subscription model. The response to this was to erect "paywalls," or requiring a subscription at some point online, in order to recoup done of the lost revenue. What we are finding (and the NYT is the 600-pound gorilla in journalism and arguably the most important case study) is that some people are willing to pay for access to digital content. The problem, however, is that the cost to produce this digital content is currently still greater than the revenue it brings in. Yes, the New York Times loses money every year - it's publicly traded and its profit and loss statements are publicly available, so there's no assumptions being made; they are losing money. A lot of it. They're publicly traded and have a lot of retained earnings, so they can afford to do this for a while, but they are losing money every year nonetheless.
      - 14y ago
nhebb 14y ago
Attention is being paid to this story in the news world because the NYT has a model to sustain their business. With recent announcements that Newsweek is going out of print and the publishing arm of News Corp lost $2B in the last year, the industry outlook is still bleak. Although the paywall success is good news in the short run, the NYT is not growing. They recently announced more staff cuts, their 2-yr EPS outlook is flat, and they have $0.7B in debt on a $1.2B market cap.

personlurking 14y ago

Not to take the focus off of your point, but the phrase "beg the question" caught my eye due to reading about it recently. I recommend the section below. Cheers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question#Modern_usage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question#Modern_usa...

joe_the_user 14y ago
The thing is that "begs the question" has such nice ring to it even when used incorrectly. I'd say most people mean "the question remains..", "...fails to answer the initial question" or "...leaves the question X unanswered" when they say "...begs the question". Unfortunately, none of these more correct phrase have the same flourish. What to do...
austenallred 14y ago
Aw, man. I wonder how often I've said that incorrectly. Thank you!

saurik 14y ago

The NYT has existed for a sufficiently long enough time that they could not possibly have been losing money. Now, their revenue from subscriptions is apparently going up after than their revenue from advertisements is falling. Shouldn't that indicate that they are still cash flow positive? Alternatively, are you saying their costs are going up dramatically to compensate for this increase in revenue, and that, in fact, they are now losing money and will soon die?

thefreeman 14y ago
> The NYT has existed for a sufficiently long enough time that they could not possibly have been losing money. What?
- saurik 14y ago
  So, to verify: you believe that the NYT has managed to go over 150 years in the red? Maybe propped up by an insanely large funding round, with an extremely low burn rate? austenallred's contention is that somehow the NYT costs more to produce than people are willing to pay, and that this is an endemic problem with journalism, not just some recent problem with a website (and, as I point out, it can't be, as with the website NYT's subscription revenue is up in over-compensation to the amount their advertising revenue is down).
  - austenallred 14y ago
    No one is contending that the NYT has never generated a profit. It has been very, very successful on the past, however with the advent of the Internet came a lot of cheap and free content, making the average consumer less willing to pay for content, while simultaneously creating cheaper, more targeted avenues for advertising. Nearly every newspaper in the United States sees that by switching to free, digital content, they only earn a small fraction of the revenue that they did from the more heavily based subscription model. The response to this was to erect "paywalls," or requiring a subscription at some point online, in order to recoup done of the lost revenue. What we are finding (and the NYT is the 600-pound gorilla in journalism and arguably the most important case study) is that some people are willing to pay for access to digital content. The problem, however, is that the cost to produce this digital content is currently still greater than the revenue it brings in. Yes, the New York Times loses money every year - it's publicly traded and its profit and loss statements are publicly available, so there's no assumptions being made; they are losing money. A lot of it. They're publicly traded and have a lot of retained earnings, so they can afford to do this for a while, but they are losing money every year nonetheless.
    - 14y ago

nhebb 14y ago

Attention is being paid to this story in the news world because the NYT has a model to sustain their business. With recent announcements that Newsweek is going out of print and the publishing arm of News Corp lost $2B in the last year, the industry outlook is still bleak. Although the paywall success is good news in the short run, the NYT is not growing. They recently announced more staff cuts, their 2-yr EPS outlook is flat, and they have $0.7B in debt on a $1.2B market cap.