Donald Trump continues to help the New York Times, one of his ‘real’ media irritants, towards a successful transition to the digital future, judging by the third quarter report from the company’s parent, the New York Times Co overnight.
Digital only subscribers to the paper and its various online products jumped by another 154,000 in the September quarter to almost 2.5 million, helping subscription revenues to rise 16% and more than offset a 9% drop in ad revenues.
Total subscription revenues rose 14% to $246 million, or 64% of total revenues of $US385 million.That was up from a 59% share a year ago.
This is the way all successful print media are heading – the Financial Times and the Washington Post, plus The Economist.
In Australia Fairfax and News Corp are also imitating – News trumpeted this week that The Australian has now 100,000 digital only subscribers.
Donald Trump’s incessant attacks on the Times and its rival media (such as the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, CBS News, NBC News) as “fake news’ and describing them as “failing” continues to be the biggest single driver for their survival and success in making the difficult move from their legacy print businesses to a digital future.
But while legacy media are chasing a mostly mobile futures Facebook (and Google) are already there (as we reported on Facebook’s quarterly figures yesterday).
In fact Facebook is heading for annual revenues of $US39 billion or more and net profits of around $US16 billion. The New York Times is heading for revenues of around $US1.6 billion and net profits of around around $US80 to $90 million. It is an uneven fight, but the NYT is making big strides.
A week today we get an update from news Corp on how it is travelling with its September quarter results release. The Wall Street Journal is adding subscribers (as is the Australian and the Times in London) and analysts will be looking to compare its results to those of the Times.
The continuing surge in digital subscribers for the NYT (They are now 59% above the level of the third quarter of 2016) helped boost total company revenues 6% in the quarter to $US385.6 million.
Digital subscription revenues, which include subscriptions to the newspaper’s crossword product and its new paid cooking app, rose 46% to $85.7 million in the quarter, outweighing print ad revenues of $US64 million (down 20%) and digital ad revenues of $US49.2 million in the quarter – that’s now 43% of total ad revenues.
Earnings rose to $US32.3 million from $US406,000 a year earlier thanks to the higher subs income, lower retrenchment costs and the inclusion of a profit from an asset sale. Without that sale benefit, profit was still around $US16 million.
The company said the rise in digital only subscribers in the quarter “more than offset a decline in print copies sold,“ in the quarter without giving a figure for the size of the print run. Of the 154,000 extra subs, 105,000 were for the news product, 23,000 for the new cooking app and the rest were for the company’s crosswords and puzzles.
The market didn’t like the results – the shares fell trimming the year’s gains to 34% from just over 40% at Wednesday’s close.
