What will these “most powerful news projects” bring to the audience, readers, and the New York Times itself? let us wait and see.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “All Media” (ID:quanmeipai), author Tencent Media. Authorized to reprint.
The 2020 is approaching, and the difficulty of doing media is upgraded again.
One recent performance was that the New York Times also started filming after entering podcasts and TV.
The New York Times plans to launch at least two ministerial documentaries in 2020. The spokesperson said that one of them will be the first ministerial documentary of the television department, directed by the New York Times reporter, focusing on the New York Times news report.
Before these two documentaries, The New York Times has launched three shows this year to increase exposure; earlier, the New York Times also entered the podcasting field. These initiatives are all aimed at increasing exposure, and hope that viewers and listeners can be transformed into readers and subscribers. This issue of the full media (ID: quanmeipai) exclusive compilation of Digiday articles, take you to see the “New York Times” in the television and film business ambition and efforts.
TV “brushing presence”, all in order to stay new
“What we are interested in in the TV business is that TV helps people develop the habit of ‘waiting in the living room’. For decades, Americans have been in the living room for hours each day. Our Lord The industry is a subscription business, but we are also very concerned about how to help users develop habits – when will the New York Times get more time from you?” said Stephanie Preiss, executive director of the New York Times television and audio division.
The current show has been given to The New York Times.The business has improved, with “other” revenues of $48 million in the most recent quarter, up 26% year-on-year. This is mainly due to the “The Weekly” series of documentaries premiered in FX and Hulu in June. A spokesman for the New York Times said that the show had a total of 18 episodes, distributed through cable TV, on-demand and streaming media, with an average of 1.2 million viewers per episode.
Of course, the specific contributions of these programs to the overall business of The New York Times remain unclear. After all, it’s hard to find a direct connection between the program’s ratings and the New York Times subscription business, just as advertisers are still confused about whether the ads on TV are letting people buy them. The product.
In contrast, these programs have spurred more interest in the New York Times related podcasts and articles. For example, Amazon’s adaptation of Modern Love has boosted the number of downloads of podcasts and columns.
Amazon’s “Modern Love” (a translation of “Modern Love”), adapted from the “New York Times” column of the same name, mainly tells eight New York essays, nine love stories, “exploring the complex emotional life of contemporary people, and The pain and joy of love.”
In addition to retaining old users, these TV shows on Amazon Prime Video, Hulu and Netflix also give the New York Times the opportunity to pull new users.
“Our research shows that the proportion of younger generations using streaming media and social media is indeed higher than the older generation who already know the New York Times content,” said Anne Hunter, vice president of strategy and growth at Kantar.
Melissa Chown, founder and CEO of audience development agency Twenty-First Digital, also said, “The New York Times uses podcasts to take a place in people’s commuting cars, the truth and the use of television to build in people’s living rooms. The sense of existence is the same.” Other media such as Vox Media and Axios are also involved in TV networks and streaming services, in order to build their own branding positions on the largest screen in people’s homes.
TV movies are double-punched, but it’s not easy to do content
The New York Times documentary will be on the big screen, and remains to be seen. The top executives declined to give more details about their film plans. However, “New YorkSam Dolnick, assistant editor-in-chief of the Times, said that they did not believe that the film business and the television business were completely separate, although the film business had been separated from the independent video department that produced videos for platforms such as The New York Times and YouTube.
Frankly, Steph and I are building a brand new department that works primarily on streaming platforms and doesn’t make TV and movies ‘one size fits all’.”
Of course, Dolnick also admits that television is different from other forms of media. The New York Times found that television is another business. So, like other media like Axios, The New York Times chose to rely on external production companies (such as Left/Right) to manage related businesses while enriching their internal teams. “We thought that the TV business was just one more step. It seems that it is a completely different field,” Dolnick said.
For example, The New York Times has formed a story team for Weekly, working with Jason Stallman, editor-in-chief of the show, and other members of the editorial department to determine which stories can be collaborated in television.
This team includes former New York Times columnist Dan Barry, former ProPublica research director, current HBO “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” senior news producer Liz Day, and former “Publish” Liz Baylen, the Pulitzer Prize candidate directed by the New York Times Enterprise Channel.
In contrast, the New York Times’ two other episodes, Diagnosis, adapted from the magazine column by Netflix, and Modern Love, adapted from the Styles column by Amazon, There are differences in staffing. Both Preiss and Dolnick were involved in the production of Diagnostics, Dolnick also served as a consultant in Modern Love, and the staff in the New York Times who were responsible for the text were more involved in television adaptation.
In terms of film, the documentary was produced by the television department of Preiss and Dolnick. Kathleen Lingo, who was in charge of the Op-Docs column and nominated for an Oscar, has been forming a documentary team to produce series and long documentaries for “Streaming Channels, Cinemas and All Other Documentary Screenings”, Dolnick said. .
Unlike Lingo’s genre-free script-free program, the TV department is responsible for scripting production by Caitlin Roper, editorial director of NYT Magazine Labs. She will meet with producers, directors, and screenwriters to discuss the types of programs they are interested in, and then dig deep into the New York Times’ past reports to determine which stories can be adapted. “Modern Love” was born like this, and “there are still many plots in the early stages of development,” Dolnick said.
It’s worth mentioning that although the New York Times is rapidly building its own program matrix, its goal is not to “produce hundreds of TV products, hundreds of movies or other things.” Instead, the media intends to adopt a cautious strategy. “We only make 30 episodes, but each episode is the most powerful news project of the New York Times this year,” Dolnick said.
And what do these “most powerful news projects” bring to viewers, readers, and the New York Times itself? let us wait and see.