Innovation comes at a price, it turns out. The New York Times’ investment in new digital products ate into its first-quarter earnings.
The company has been busy developing new digital products to capture readers who fall on either the low or high ends of the engagement spectrum. The NYT Now free mobile app on one end and, at the other, Times Premier, a premium service aimed at diehard fans, rolled out after the end of the first quarter, and more vertical apps are on the way.
In the company’s first-quarter earnings call, it disclosed that operating costs rose 3.8 percent to $365.8 million, mainly due to expenses associated with new products. Operating profit was $22.1 million in the quarter, down from $28.1 million in the same period of 2013.
On the bright side, the Times’ print and digital revenue is up for the first time in several years. The paper also continues to add digital subscribers, contributing to a 13.6 percent increase in overall digital circulation revenue over the year-ago quarter.
More in Media
Media Briefing: Step by step, publishers are building toward an agent-led ad business
Agentic AI-driven media trading could wipe out a lot of the problems caused by its programmatic predecessor. Namely, ad tech middlemen.
In Graphic Detail: How AI search is changing publisher visibility
AI platforms like ChatGPT and Google AI Mode are driving more search activity. Some publishers are gaining visibility — but not traffic.
AI royalties for small and midsize publishers: collective licensing’s next big play
Don’t credit OpenAI’s ChatGPT, credit corporate LLMs – enterprise RAG is what’s creating royalty revenue for publishers.
