7 ms·

This series is really good. The fact that the nytimes is bleeding money while still producing content of this quality is a sad state of affairs. Must be a bette

by zippzom 11y ago

This series is really good. The fact that the nytimes is bleeding money while still producing content of this quality is a sad state of affairs. Must be a better way to monetize this stuff.

guelo 11y ago
I don't think they're bleeding money. They've been operating on slim margins but they are considered to be one of the few old media companies to be successfully transitioning to digital.
wxs 11y ago
I agree that this series is great and I hope we can support more content like it! I don't agree that the NY Times is bleeding money though, it's a rare bright spot in publishing AFAIK. They seem to run a profit every year, though their revenue does not appear to be growing[1]. [1] see financials here: http://investors.nytco.com/files/doc_financials/annual/2014/2014-Annual-Report-(FINAL).pdf http://investors.nytco.com/files/doc_financials/annual/2014/...
djloche 11y ago
It seems like they're aggressively paying down debts and resolving union related costs. Based on their quarterly reports they seem to be doing okay in terms of cash on balance sheet and revenue vs costs of production. Their major concern long term is still valid - 74% of their revenue comes from print advertising. They need to significantly grow the digital side of their business, and reduce their overall costs.
- mattdotc 11y ago
  It would also be nice if people would re-think their mental model about where content comes from and who pays for it. I hear about so many people blocking ads and whatnot - and I understand why - but you don't really see these same people evangelize subscriptions or otherwise supporting these places. Of course, ad blocking is only one aspect to lower digital advertising revenues, but so many people complain about paywalls and whatnot, yet nobody seems to have any good solutions. Until we have a good solution, and people get over their entitlement to free (as in beer) media, outlets like the NYT and others will continue to precariously wobble near the tipping point of print's demise (and the revenue with it).
  - buserror 11y ago
    I don't see adblocks at being the problem; adblock is /mandatory/ these days on the web; for the 0.01% website that deserve the revenue, the rest is there to abuse it, put autoplay flash, full screen popups, tracking cookies and all they can possibly /can/ on you. The other problem is the 'monetisation'; it seems everyone around wants £10 a month. Sorry, I might pay £10/m for netflix that I use often, but do I want to pay that to everyone that I use twice a month, or even sometime a lot less? Well, nope. Not only that, but registering and paying makes you even more marketable, where your viewing habits and so on can get sold on to 'partners'. I don't /mind/ paying for content, and I don't /mind/ ads, it's just the abusive nature of how it's done these days that I mind.
    - justizin 11y ago
      Seriously, I was reading a WIRED article, and in an ad slot, there's an image asking that I disable my ad-blocker for them, so I did, and reloaded. The two-page article was fronted by a 30-second or more preroll video and there were animations all over the page. Re-enabled. When ads stop being malware, I'll let them through.
    - grkvlt 11y ago
      > adblock is /mandatory/ these days No, it really is not. Ad-blockers are run by a minority of users, and the vast majority simply use whatever browser camne with their PC, or maybe download Chrome. But installing ad-blockers, GreaseMonkey scripts, Firefox extensions and the like basically never crosses the mind of your average web content viewing public. [1] I'm not sure I'd count the adverts I see as 'abusive' either. Many times I have found ads useful, interesting, curious or (on YouTube videos) worth watching without skipping. Just as with TV and newspapers, yes, there is much crass, unsubtle, and badly created advertising. However, it's all ignorable, and even if a site pops up an inter-stitial advert, I've yet to come across one that I cannot close and move on to the content. Of course, pop-ups that tell me I have read all the free content I am allowed are different, and in those cases I make a choice - do I want to read the article enough to pay for it? As for wanting GBP 10 per month, I would spend much more than that on physical newspapers (at 50p per issue, the 'i' is one of the cheapest, so that's about GBP 15 per month) so it seems pretty reasonable. And I don't expect my copy of the Guardian to have no adverts because I paid for it, as opposed to reading it in the library. In fact, again, I find the adverts can often be useful and informative, even in such a widely targeted medium as a single newspaper. [1] full disclosure - I have never used or installed an ad-blocker, nor wanted to in my 20+ years of web usage
- morsch 11y ago
  One reason why so few people are willing to pay for good content is that there is so much of it. If the NYT goes goes broke and stops publishing, or puts their stuff behind a paywall and consequently goes broke and stops publishing, people don't care, because there's dozens and dozens of other publications with the same quality competing for their attention. Along with, of course, a whole internet full of click-bait, zero research garbage, but that is sort-of beside the point: there is free quality journalism to be had elsewhere, in such seeming abundance that I can't say that this carefree attitude by readers is short-sighted. Another thing is that the manner in which journalism is consumed has changed fundamentally: we pick and chose individual articles from a variety of sources instead of reading or skimming through one publisher's entire newspaper for any given day. In other words, it's not even the NYT that's competing for attention with other publishers, it's any given article that's competing for attention with any other article. It's possible that I'm not giving the NYT and their ilk enough credit: while I think there's no debating there's an overabundance of thoughtful, well-written long- (and short-) form content out there -- more of it alone on HN that I'd have to quit my job to read it all -- I'm open to the suggestion that much of it is still different from what newspapers like the NYT do, or strive to do, particularly in terms of dedicated research and fact-checking. If that's the case, and there remains a demand for this kind of content as opposed to content that's "just" well-written and thoughtful, maybe at some point before it's gone it'll be rare enough that people will start paying for it.
  - ForrestN 11y ago
    Briefly: the NYT has no true peers, which is why it's called "The Paper of Record." Nationally, globally and locally, it plays an indispensable civic role, to say nothing of its value qua "content on the internet." Much of their reporting shapes the conversations that define many, many dimensions of contemporary life, and if they were to disappear quite a bit of important truth would go uncovered. Journalism is not merely something to be consumed, it is a necessary part of the social ecosystem. The New York Times is too big to fail, and is easily among the most important corporations of any size, period, despite it's small capitalization. edit: for what it's worth, my father was a journalism professor and sometimes-head of one of the top journalism programs in the US, so I grew up hearing a lot about this sort of thing!

by zippzom 11y ago

This series is really good. The fact that the nytimes is bleeding money while still producing content of this quality is a sad state of affairs. Must be a better way to monetize this stuff.

guelo 11y ago

I don't think they're bleeding money. They've been operating on slim margins but they are considered to be one of the few old media companies to be successfully transitioning to digital.

wxs 11y ago

I agree that this series is great and I hope we can support more content like it! I don't agree that the NY Times is bleeding money though, it's a rare bright spot in publishing AFAIK. They seem to run a profit every year, though their revenue does not appear to be growing[1]. [1] see financials here: http://investors.nytco.com/files/doc_financials/annual/2014/2014-Annual-Report-(FINAL).pdf http://investors.nytco.com/files/doc_financials/annual/2014/...

djloche 11y ago

It seems like they're aggressively paying down debts and resolving union related costs. Based on their quarterly reports they seem to be doing okay in terms of cash on balance sheet and revenue vs costs of production. Their major concern long term is still valid - 74% of their revenue comes from print advertising. They need to significantly grow the digital side of their business, and reduce their overall costs.

mattdotc 11y ago
It would also be nice if people would re-think their mental model about where content comes from and who pays for it. I hear about so many people blocking ads and whatnot - and I understand why - but you don't really see these same people evangelize subscriptions or otherwise supporting these places. Of course, ad blocking is only one aspect to lower digital advertising revenues, but so many people complain about paywalls and whatnot, yet nobody seems to have any good solutions. Until we have a good solution, and people get over their entitlement to free (as in beer) media, outlets like the NYT and others will continue to precariously wobble near the tipping point of print's demise (and the revenue with it).
- buserror 11y ago
  I don't see adblocks at being the problem; adblock is /mandatory/ these days on the web; for the 0.01% website that deserve the revenue, the rest is there to abuse it, put autoplay flash, full screen popups, tracking cookies and all they can possibly /can/ on you. The other problem is the 'monetisation'; it seems everyone around wants £10 a month. Sorry, I might pay £10/m for netflix that I use often, but do I want to pay that to everyone that I use twice a month, or even sometime a lot less? Well, nope. Not only that, but registering and paying makes you even more marketable, where your viewing habits and so on can get sold on to 'partners'. I don't /mind/ paying for content, and I don't /mind/ ads, it's just the abusive nature of how it's done these days that I mind.
  - justizin 11y ago
    Seriously, I was reading a WIRED article, and in an ad slot, there's an image asking that I disable my ad-blocker for them, so I did, and reloaded. The two-page article was fronted by a 30-second or more preroll video and there were animations all over the page. Re-enabled. When ads stop being malware, I'll let them through.
  - grkvlt 11y ago
    > adblock is /mandatory/ these days No, it really is not. Ad-blockers are run by a minority of users, and the vast majority simply use whatever browser camne with their PC, or maybe download Chrome. But installing ad-blockers, GreaseMonkey scripts, Firefox extensions and the like basically never crosses the mind of your average web content viewing public. [1] I'm not sure I'd count the adverts I see as 'abusive' either. Many times I have found ads useful, interesting, curious or (on YouTube videos) worth watching without skipping. Just as with TV and newspapers, yes, there is much crass, unsubtle, and badly created advertising. However, it's all ignorable, and even if a site pops up an inter-stitial advert, I've yet to come across one that I cannot close and move on to the content. Of course, pop-ups that tell me I have read all the free content I am allowed are different, and in those cases I make a choice - do I want to read the article enough to pay for it? As for wanting GBP 10 per month, I would spend much more than that on physical newspapers (at 50p per issue, the 'i' is one of the cheapest, so that's about GBP 15 per month) so it seems pretty reasonable. And I don't expect my copy of the Guardian to have no adverts because I paid for it, as opposed to reading it in the library. In fact, again, I find the adverts can often be useful and informative, even in such a widely targeted medium as a single newspaper. [1] full disclosure - I have never used or installed an ad-blocker, nor wanted to in my 20+ years of web usage
morsch 11y ago
One reason why so few people are willing to pay for good content is that there is so much of it. If the NYT goes goes broke and stops publishing, or puts their stuff behind a paywall and consequently goes broke and stops publishing, people don't care, because there's dozens and dozens of other publications with the same quality competing for their attention. Along with, of course, a whole internet full of click-bait, zero research garbage, but that is sort-of beside the point: there is free quality journalism to be had elsewhere, in such seeming abundance that I can't say that this carefree attitude by readers is short-sighted. Another thing is that the manner in which journalism is consumed has changed fundamentally: we pick and chose individual articles from a variety of sources instead of reading or skimming through one publisher's entire newspaper for any given day. In other words, it's not even the NYT that's competing for attention with other publishers, it's any given article that's competing for attention with any other article. It's possible that I'm not giving the NYT and their ilk enough credit: while I think there's no debating there's an overabundance of thoughtful, well-written long- (and short-) form content out there -- more of it alone on HN that I'd have to quit my job to read it all -- I'm open to the suggestion that much of it is still different from what newspapers like the NYT do, or strive to do, particularly in terms of dedicated research and fact-checking. If that's the case, and there remains a demand for this kind of content as opposed to content that's "just" well-written and thoughtful, maybe at some point before it's gone it'll be rare enough that people will start paying for it.
- ForrestN 11y ago
  Briefly: the NYT has no true peers, which is why it's called "The Paper of Record." Nationally, globally and locally, it plays an indispensable civic role, to say nothing of its value qua "content on the internet." Much of their reporting shapes the conversations that define many, many dimensions of contemporary life, and if they were to disappear quite a bit of important truth would go uncovered. Journalism is not merely something to be consumed, it is a necessary part of the social ecosystem. The New York Times is too big to fail, and is easily among the most important corporations of any size, period, despite it's small capitalization. edit: for what it's worth, my father was a journalism professor and sometimes-head of one of the top journalism programs in the US, so I grew up hearing a lot about this sort of thing!