Media Briefing: Publishers’ revenue growth defies traffic declines, but tougher comparisons loom

Declining referral traffic and AI disruption aren’t stopping some of the largest publishers from growing revenue, according to recent earnings. The New York Times, News Corp, People Inc., Reuters all reported gains in the third quarter, fueled by a mix of subscriptions, advertising and content licensing. 

But their latest earnings also point to a common challenge heading into the final part of the year: sustaining that momentum as last year’s revenue gains make for tougher comparisons.

Notably, AI licensing has delivered real revenue growth for People Inc. and Reuters, especially as they look to diversify revenue beyond advertising. But the initial boost from those deals is becoming harder to replicate as those agreements mature.

“The short-term revenue win that publishers got by striking LLM deals helps for a quarter or four to eight, but it’s often at the expense of lost audience and inventory,” said Matt Prohaska, CEO and principal of Prohaska Consulting.

The New York Times is also bracing for tougher year-over-year comparisons in the fourth quarter, although in its case, the challenge stems from an advertising supply increase in 2025.

Meanwhile, News Corp’s latest earnings painted a more mixed picture, revealing publishers face different levels of exposure to declining audiences and traditional advertising pressures, even within the same company. The company posted strong revenue growth in its Dow Jones business, amid declines in its News Media division.

Digiday broke down what media executives said in their earnings call this week so far (still a few more to go, with USA Today Co., BuzzFeed and Ziff Davis later this week), and what it reveals about where publishers see their businesses heading next:

The New York Times: Ad growth slows against a strong prior-year quarter

What was said: “The comps get tougher as the year goes on. Q4 is our biggest quarter in ads this year and last year. I’ll remind you we grew 25%. And last year we benefited from these sort of structural supply increases in certain parts of the portfolio.” – Meredith Kopit Levien, CEO, The New York Times Company.

What it really means: The Times benefited from a significant expansion of ad inventory last year, helping drive 25% YOY growth in digital advertising in Q4 2025. That sets a high baseline for the same quarter this year, making it more difficult to sustain that pace of growth, Kopit Levien said in the earnings call on Nov. 4. Digital advertising revenue growth has already slowed, from 20.7% YOY in Q2 2026 to 12% in Q3.

Because of this, the Times expects more modest advertising growth this quarter – though Kopit Levien said in the earnings call that the company will continue to add supply going forward, though it will be “more incremental and more across the portfolio.”

Kopit Levien assured investors that AI search wasn’t negatively impacting The Times’ business. Despite not being “immune to that impact,” The Times’ economic model is “driven a lot by subscriber engagement,” making it more insulated from traffic declines, she said.

People Inc: AI licensing growth’s next phase

What was said: “The licensing revenue, as I said and as we saw, was really impressive. We continue to have real success across Apple News, AI, and other content partnerships. In Q4, those growth rates will slow some as we lap the Meta AI deal that we announced last Q4. We still expect full-year growth to be about what we delivered in licensing in the first half which translates to something roughly about 20% Q4 growth. Again, our focus is to get back to the growth we want and expect.” – Tim Quinn, CFO, People Inc. 

What it really means: People Inc. has three publicly disclosed AI licensing deals, with OpenAI, Meta and Microsoft. The Meta deal Quinn referenced during the Nov. 3 earnings call was signed last December. While People Inc.’s licensing revenue grew 49% year over year in Q3 2026, Quinn cautioned investors against expecting a similar growth rate in the fourth quarter, as the company begins to lap the initial revenue boost from its Meta deal.

But People Inc. execs remained optimistic about the AI licensing market. “They will continue to evolve and there’s a big place for our content. There’s increasingly a place for recency — meaning new content — in that marketplace,” Quinn said in the earnings call.

However, the majority of People Inc.’s licensing revenue growth came from non-AI content licensing deals. Apple News has been a “great success,” Quinn said, alongside distribution deals with platforms such as Yahoo and MSN. In total, about 15 of People Inc.’s brands are successfully generating content licensing revenue, Quinn added. Overall, People Inc.’s digital revenue grew 2% YOY in Q3 2026.

Reuters: AI licensing windfalls create tougher comparisons

What was said: “We expect Reuters growth to be flattish year-over-year in the fourth quarter due to lapping $5 million of transactional AI licensing revenue from the prior year period, along with tougher comps at agency and in portions of the professional business.”  – Gary Bischoping, CFO, Thomson Reuters.

What it really means: Reuters also has three publicly disclosed AI content licensing deals: with Meta and Microsoft in October 2024, and a deal with Amazon in May 2026. However, a Reuters executive previously told Digiday that the company has other AI content licensing deals that it has not spoken about publicly, and cited the company’s earnings as a sign of this. The full list of Reuters’ AI licensing partners and the number of deals is not clear. But what is clear is that revenue from these deals has helped boost Reuters’ overall business. 

Reuters organic revenue grew 12% in Q3 2026, thanks to about $19 million of transactional generative AI content licensing in the quarter, per Bischoping. When excluding transactional AI licensing revenue in the third quarter of both 2026 and 2025, Reuters’ revenue grew 7% YOY. While AI licensing was a meaningful contributor to Reuters’ growth this past quarter, it can create volatility in year-over-year comparisons, as its not recurring revenue for the company. 

Also, stronger prior-year performance in Reuters’ agency and professional businesses will mean tougher comps in Q4 2026, Bischoping said.

News Corp: A mixed earnings picture amid industry headwinds

What was said: “News Media continues to navigate complex market pressures, including a challenging advertising environment and the ongoing evolution of the search and social algorithm landscape. As mentioned earlier, that search landscape will change dramatically with the advent of agentic AI. Revenues for the segment declined slightly versus prior year to $540 million.” – Robert Thomson, CEO, News Corp

What it really means: Revenue at News Corp’s Dow Jones business — which includes titles like The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s and MarketWatch — grew 8% year over year, fueled by subscriptions, licensing and its professional information businesses, according to its earnings released on Nov. 4. Digital advertising revenue increased 12%, matching the growth rate reported by The New York Times in Q3. These results are an example of how large publishers are finding ways to grow revenue beyond traditional traffic-dependent business models, even as some face tougher year-over-year comparisons ahead.

However, revenue at the company’s News Media division — which includes The Sun, The Times of London and the New York Post — declined 1% YOY. The division’s ad revenue fell 2% YOY, despite gains in subscription pricing and content licensing revenue. Audience declines were also evident: The Sun’s global monthly unique users fell 26% YOY in September, while the New York Post’s digital audience declined 11%.

Q4 forecast

• The New York Times expects advertising revenue growth to slow in Q4. The company forecast high-single-digit to low-double-digit growth in digital advertising revenue, compared with 25% growth in the year-earlier period. The Times expects digital subscription revenue to grow between 12% and 15% in Q4, consistent with Q3 growth.
• People Inc. expects digital revenue growth to accelerate to low- to mid-single digits in the fourth quarter (up from 2% in Q3). But CFO Tim Quinn projected licensing revenue growth to slow to roughly 20% in Q4, compared with 49% in Q3. 
• People Inc.’s digital advertising fell 8% YOY in Q3, due to pressure on traffic, but execs expect this to improve in Q4 (Quinn did not share a specific rate). In Q3, core sessions (unique visitors to People Inc.’s core brands) declined by 26% YOY, the steepest decline the company has experienced so far. Last quarter, the company saw a 22% YOY decline in core sessions. AI Overviews are now found on over 90% of the Google Search queries People Inc. tracks, an increase since Q3, Quinn added.
• Reuters expects organic revenue growth to slow to roughly flat in the fourth quarter, down from 12% growth in Q3.
• News Corp’s CFO Lavanya Chandrashekar said in the earnings call that the company expects “strong revenue performance” in the next quarter for its Dow Jones business, and “similar trends” for its News Media division.

What we’ve heard

“I think this is useless and is marketing, and far, far, far too late… It does nothing and doesn’t solve the problem at all. And so it’s purely window dressing.”

– Paul Bannister, chief strategy officer at Raptive, on the robots.txt “policy token” multiple AI companies have agreed to honor, which they say will allow publishers to opt out of having their content used to train generative AI models.

Numbers to know

13.76 million: The total number of New York Times subscribers, after the company added about 420,000 net digital-only subscribers in Q3 2026.

15%: The YOY growth of People Inc.’s non-session-based revenue in Q3 2026, due to strength in licensing, content syndication, events and social video. This now makes up 43% of People Inc.’s overall digital revenue.

26%: The reduction in unique visitors to participating Digital Content Next members’ sites from 2023 to 2025, according to data collected by the publisher trade group and included in an amicus brief filed in a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft.

38%: The share of people using AI to find information weekly, up from 11% in 2024, making it the main use of AI, according to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism’s “Generative AI and News Report 2026.”

51%: The share of people using AI tools weekly in 2026, nearly triple the 18% reported in 2024, according to the Reuters Institute report.

What we’ve covered

Publishers furious over Meta’s AI scraping terms still can’t quit Facebook

• Publisher trade groups worldwide are pushing back against Meta’s proposed terms of service, which could allow the company to scrape publishers’ content for AI without compensation. But despite growing frustration, heads of audience told Digiday they aren’t ready to abandon Meta’s platforms, raising questions about how much leverage publishers have to force changes.
• Although Meta’s referral traffic has dwindled, publishers still rely on Facebook and Instagram for brand awareness, audience engagement, subscriptions and advertising. 

Read more here.

Political creators juggle platforms to balance reach, revenue and unpredictable rules

• Political news creators are spreading their content across multiple platforms to balance audience growth, monetization and content moderation challenges. 
• YouTube offers relatively reliable ad revenue, Instagram delivers massive reach with limited direct payouts, and Facebook is emerging as a valuable source. Meanwhile, creators say TikTok’s unpredictable engagement and moderation policies make it harder to build sustainable businesses. But for many creators, subscriptions are proving more valuable than platform payouts. 

Read more here.

People Inc. builds custom APIs to make its journalism easier for AI agents to access

• People Inc. is developing custom APIs that deliver its journalism directly to AI agents in Markdown format, stripping away unnecessary webpage elements while preserving key details. 
• The approach aims to reduce processing costs for AI systems while giving the publisher greater control over how its content is accessed and used by AI partners.

Read more here.

Giggly Squad’s $160 million SiriusXM deal signals a shift from podcast networks to creator ecosystems

• SiriusXM’s multiyear deal with Giggly Squad hosts Paige DeSorbo and Hannah Berner, reportedly worth $160 million, highlights a shift in podcasting: platforms are increasingly investing in creators’ broader businesses rather than individual shows. 
• Podcast platforms are expanding beyond audio distribution to help creators monetize across multiple channels, while advertisers increasingly seek partnerships spanning entire creator ecosystems. 

Read more here.

The Times of London plans to test flexible payments to reach readers who won’t subscribe

• The Times of London is preparing to test “macro payments,” allowing readers to pay for specific content packages, such as its annual Rich List and Best Places guides, without committing to a full subscription. 
• The publisher, which has roughly 680,000 digital subscribers, found that more than 75% of occasional readers would prefer flexible access, and is considering day or week passes as a way to monetize those audiences without undermining its existing subscription business.

Read more here.

What we’re reading

OpenAI, Google and Microsoft back new standard for publishers to block AI scraping

OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Anthropic have agreed to support a new robots.txt “policy token” standard that would allow publishers to opt out of their content being scraped and used for AI training, without needing to configure restrictions for each one individually, The Verge reported.

Condé Nast faces $35 million ad revenue shortfall

Condé Nast is reportedly on track to miss its Q4 U.S. advertising target by more than $35 million, amid senior sales departures and uncertainty over its commercial strategy, Adweek reported.

People Inc. cuts 195 staffers

People Inc. chief executive Neil Vogel told staff in a memo that the company will cut 195 people, as a result of the “rapid changes in media,” The New York Times reported.

New York Times and other publishers sue Brave over AI scraping

The New York Times and several other newspapers (including the Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, and the Orlando Sentinel) have sued Brave, accusing the web browser company of illegally scraping their content for AI platforms and allowing users to bypass their paywalls, Reuters reported.

Bloomberg to pay $500,000 over misleading subscription practices

Bloomberg has agreed to pay $500,000 in penalties and refund eligible subscribers after a New York investigation found the publisher failed to adequately disclose automatic renewals and subscription price increases, as well as made cancellations difficult.