Tag: newspapers

The New York Times knows what it is and what business it is in

500What is the New York Times? Based on those who have NYT Derangement Syndrome**, it’s a newspaper that has betrayed its progressive readers by publishing articles and oped pieces that are centrist or even right wing.

I have sympathy for such views. I love the Times and I wish it were solidly to the left politically the way a paper like the Guardian is. But is that what it aspires to be?

The best way to understand their aspirations is to look at what they say about themselves. We can see that recently in things they published here, here and here. The CEO himself says the Times is…

on the path to grow our subscriber base and become the essential subscription for every curious person seeking to understand and engage with the world. The combination of our world-class news destination plus market-leading lifestyle products means we have complementary offerings in big spaces, each with multiple growth levers fueling multiple revenue streams. Together we believe these make The Times resilient in a changing media landscape and well positioned for continued value creation.

That’s the business the Times is in. Indeed, it is reflected in things they produce, like the New York Times mobile app. Sure the News is still front and center on top of the app, but with a simple swipe left or right you have Cooking, The Athletic, Lifestyle, Great Reads and more. If you never ever read the news but digitally subscribe to get access to the Cooking section or The Athletic section, that’s fine by the CEO. Or if  you read / hate read Bret Stevens and Ross Douthat, that’s good for revenue as well.

The days of the New York Times being a city newspaper or even a national paper are long over. I suspect the days of it being a progressive paper are over too. Rather than be progressive it will be for everyone. Rather than be a Paper, it will be a Destination.

The days of the Manchester Guardian being a city newspaper or even a national paper are long over too. But if you want a progressive paper, that may be the place you want to go.

Meanwhile read the reports I linked to in order to see what the Times is focused on. Specifically, they have to grow digital subscriptions to increase ad revenue, especially as print subscriptions and the revenue associated with that is decreasing. As they state, “revenues grew 4.4 percent in the second quarter of 2024 to $585.2 million from $560.5 million in the second quarter of 2023. Subscription revenues increased 6.5 percent to $410.0 million from $385.0 million in the second quarter of 2023, primarily due to growth in subscription revenues from digital-only products, partially offset by decreases in print subscription revenues. Advertising revenues decreased 0.2 percent to $112.1 million from $112.3 million in the second quarter of 2023, due to declines in print advertising revenues partially offset by higher revenues from digital advertising”.  There you have it in black and white.

** NYT derangement syndrome is a derogatory term used to describe a form of toxic criticism and negative reaction to the newspapers articles and oped pieces. Not unlike Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Thinking about the non-endorsements of Harris using basic game theory ideas

No Presidential endorsements were provided by the LA Times or the Washington Post this year. This caught people by surprise, since it was expected these two papers would endorse a candidate and that candidate would be Harris. Soon it was revealed the endorsements were held up by the owners of both papers.

One way to assess the choices of the owners of the Times and the Post is to use a payoff matrix found in game theory and apply it to the moves available to them:

Action vs impact Harris Wins Trump Wins
Endorse Harris No Loss Huge Loss
Endorse No one Small loss Small Loss

My payoff assessment is based on an estimate of how much each paper has to lose by endorsing/not endorsing a candidate. If Harris wins, there is very little downside regardless of what they do. Likewise, if Trump wins and they don’t endorse, I suspect they will also lose subscriptions and staff, but overall they can manage that.

The wrinkle in all this is if Trump wins and they endorse Harris. I think the owners of both papers see a huge loss for them — either personal or financial — if that happens.

Both men have different things at stake. We already know that the team from Bezos’s other project, Blue Horizon, has been talking to Trump. No doubt Bezos would not want Trump to come into power and ban Blue Horizon from any future space exploration with NASA. That would explain why Bezos did not want the Post to endore Harris. As for Soon-Shiong, the owner of the LA Times, he tried to get a post in Trump’s first administration. Perhaps he hopes he will be successful the second time around.

If the above payoff matrix had a bigger payoff or a bigger loss regarding Harris, then they might have chosen differently. As it is, they decided to minimize their risk by endorsing no one. They are guaranteed to suffer losses, but not big ones for them personally. It’s a rational choice, but a disappointing one.

I wouldn’t be surprised if both of them got out of the newspaper business in the next four years. They clearly don’t have the appetite for the risk of running such publications.

 

 

 

 

Some thoughts on the New York Times and how it is becoming a behemoth

I had some thoughts on the New York Times after reading this: It is possible to compete with the New York Times. Here’s how. – Columbia Journalism Review

In some ways, it confirms what I have long thought: the goal for some newspapers is not to be a regional or even national newspaper anymore: the goal now is  to be a global one. The Daily Mail in the UK recognized that long ago. I know little of what they publish in the UK, I just know that they seem to be able to get a lot of people to read their online articles. In other words, they write locally but think globally. The same with the Guardian. And now I think the same is true for the Times.

The Times, according to the article, knows that most people are only going to subscribe to one paper. They want that paper to be the Times. And they seem to be winning this battle so far. Other papers might depend on click throughs, and no doubt the Times does too, but they also want to ensure that they have the one subscription you or your household pays for.

In some ways, the Times reminds me of a software company. They want to be the one platform you depend on and use every day.  The way Facebook or Google or Amazon or Microsoft want to be the sole platform you use for information or social media or other essential IT.

I think there are ways to compete with the Times, just like there are ways to compete against those other behemoths. You can be a niche competitor. You can provide a deeper and richer experience tailored for a specific audience.  You can be more nimble than they are. You can move to the future markets faster than they can.

None of these things are easy. But they are not impossible.

If you are in the news business, you need to learn how to compete with the New York Times. Because the Times is not going away and it is not getting smaller any time soon.