There are 1.104 million of swords and cooking products. The New York Times predicts that by 2025, it can achieve a total of 10 million subscriptions, of which 2 million subscribers will come from overseas.
1700: The size of the New York Times newsroom has increased by 200 compared to 2013.
700: This is the number of people in the product team. For its part, this number represents the idea of how news products express themselves and how they turn readers into subscribers. Journalism is the foundation, but the construction of the entire digital infrastructure, such as the cultivation of talents in the new media era, and the improvement of data analysis and communication, have boosted its success.
$45: This is the stock price of The New York Times at the close of trading on July 24, 2020. Compared with last year’s low of $26, the $4.97 during the Great Recession and the $10.90 four years ago have increased significantly.
$687 million: This is the number in the cash on hand report of The New York Times. In this year’s economic depression, this number is especially gratifying.
3 million: This is the number of viewers of The Daily. It is the early morning podcast created by The New York Times, directed by Michael Barbaro. Audio is just an experiment three years ago. During the epidemic, paper media encountered difficulties, but it showed more room for development.
Ad revenue has suffered a cold winter, and digital subscription revenue continues to rise
Since the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, the advertising business of various news companies has entered a cold winter. The advertising revenue of some media has fallen sharply, and the future is still uncertain. In the first quarter of this year, overall advertising revenue fell by more than 15%. Digital advertising revenue fell 8%, and traditional newspaper advertising revenue fell 21%.
The former CEO of The New York Times, Thompson, said that compared with the same period in 2019, profits in the second quarter of this year are expected to fall by 50%-55%. Like the trend before the epidemic, the decline of the paper version was greater than the decline of the digital version.
But some positive signs can still be found. As of the end of April, the “New York Times” has more than 6 million subscribers, an increase of 159,000 from the end of March. This is also a good start for the second quarter.
The epidemic seems to have encouraged more people to subscribe to news media that they consider valuable. “New York Times” reader subscription revenue is advertisingThree times the income, which also eased the loss caused by advertising loss to a certain extent.
The secret behind the New York Times’ digital subscription
The development of core news products and other digital products drove the growth of subscriptions to The New York Times. “New York Times” executives emphasized that, as the flagship product of “New York Times”, although the listener’s schedule is different every morning, the daily downloads of The Daily can reach up to 3 million. Some non-news reports are also very effective. For example, Melissa Clark’s article on how to build a food-rich storage room has received 2.5 million page views.
In addition, the “New York Times” purchased the voice application Audm in late March. At the time of the acquisition, Audm had 20,000 paying users. After the merger, the number of digital subscribers of the “New York Times” reached 5.001 million.
Like many news organizations, the New York Times gained insight into the growth trend of traffic in March, because Americans are seeking reports on the new coronavirus. The former chief operating officer Meredith Levine said that in March of this year, more than half of the adults in the United States browsed the New York Times. She said that their internal data showed that as of March, the “New York Times” had 240 million users worldwide, a record high.
This record-breaking increase in traffic means that the New York Times has attracted a large number of new users. This growth is mainly due to two measures. On the one hand, the New York Times began to require readers to register and log in to see more reports last year; in addition, during the epidemic, the New York Times temporarily provided readers with information about the new crown for free. Virus news. This allows The New York Times to better understand its readers and know what content is likely to attract them again. Levine also emphasized that our confidence stems from the fact that we have gained more users during the epidemic and attracted them to return visits continuously.
It can be seen that the “New York Times” does have its own advantages in attracting users. In addition to focusing on the research and development of core products and other digital products, it also focuses on continuous improvement of product formats and cultivating user interest.
In addition, other staff members of the “New York Times” said: Although the paper newspapers are experiencing a cold winter, the subscription volume and revenue of the paper version of the “New York Times” are still considerable, so they will insist on the production and production of paper newspapers. Operations.
Unveiled: The new CEO’s operating philosophy
A few days ago, the news industry analyst Ken Doctor of Newsonomics conducted an exclusive interview with Meredith Levine, the new CEO of The New York Times, and unveiled the mystery of the digital business of The New York Times.
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Direction choice and reality confusion
At the same time, the New York Times itself faces many choices and practical problems in its future development.
The New York Times has many choices: Do you want to be a member of paid audio? What proportion should the business of movies and TV series account for? Should we try international expansion? When the advertising industry is cold, should we adjust the paper business? Will it continue to expand on the basis of 1,700 studios? If so, what are the areas to expand and what new technologies are needed? In the past, the “New York Times” often adopted methods such as selling assets and managing acquisitions to maintain growth. Can Levine be able to formulate long-term plans to solve these problems?
Supporting the development of local news is a difficult problem, and it is still in a conceptual stage. Because supporting local news requires consideration of many issues, such as how to apply effective technology and market operation mechanisms to the local news business so that local news and news can develop.
In addition, local news organizations have many high-quality reports. The New York Times needs to cooperate with local reporters to build a complete paid subscription news market, because for most people, if they are willing to pay for digital news, they just want Pay once. This is also good news for The New York Times, because it has a wider audience and is easier to gain advantages, but the New York Times needs to take measures to make local news organizations willing to share these valuable news.
At the same time, the relationship between cross-media cooperation is not strong, and there will be conflicts between media companies. Many cooperations are cooperation on subsidiary projects. Media executives often find that these projects often lack resources and attention, and at the same time, at the technical level There are also many difficulties. For example, the construction of data connection systems on different platforms is a difficult process. This is also a problem that the New York Times must face in the future.
In-depth discussion of sharing issues
As one of the benchmarks of the media industry, the “New York Times” has carried many expectations of the industry. How the “New York Times” can help the healthy development of local news is a topic of greatest concern to the industry.
In 2019, Thompson, then CEO of The New York Times, talked about “theme sharing” in an interview. He believes that these measures can help local news companies combine the commercial and editorial parts. If the New York Times really focuses on improving local news, the following potential areas are worth exploring.
Shared data: Most local news media do not have sufficient online audience data resources, which allows advertisements other than those interested in local newsPositioning is very difficult. However, The New York Times has invested a lot of time and resources to develop a powerful set of first-party data resources that will enable advertisers to target any of 45 different audience groups.
If the data umbrella can be extended to high-quality local news organizations, the New York Times can not only improve the quality of targeted data, but also help local media by turning them into partners rather than competitors.
Shared advertising resources: Local advertisers usually only complete the advertising business covering their own area. When it comes to larger-scale advertising, they usually auction the excess advertising resources to other advertising networks, and these advertising networks Neither can it provide users with a great experience, nor can it bring benefits to the media.
It is unclear whether the advertisers of The New York Times will be interested in entering a wider market of high-quality newspaper readers, as the ordinary readers of the Dallas Morning News, the Miami Herald or the Seattle Times are the same Can attract investment from advertisers.
Shared subscriptions: Digital subscriptions have proven to be a winner-takes-all business. In the United States, about half of the digital news subscribers belong to the New York Times or The Washington Post. The New York Times has more digital subscribers than all local newspapers combined.
The Washington Post was once interested in combining local media subscribers with a wider range of subscribers to provide free access to the Washington Post, which is useful for readers who subscribe to its local news every day extra benefits. Therefore, the “New York Times” strategy needs to be changed, and it needs to find a way to connect people who tend to consume news from the two regions.
What do you think of the digital media business of The New York Times in recent years? What problems do you think the New York Times will face in the future? Welcome to share your views in the comment area~