The NYT has been paying roughly the same amount each year for production of news for the last few years, and a steadily increasing amount of "general, sales and admin", even as their gross income from subscriptions has shot up, and their income from advertising has plummeted.[1]
I really struggle with that. That isn't how this is supposed to work. Escaping the broken advertising model and moving to a reader-funded model is supposed to give you scope to shake off overheads, to clarify your business's purpose and to slimline and focus operations to improve the quality of content at the price point. That's the mantra for the new renaissance of journalism, in which the NYT has been hailed as a massive success story.
I don't by any means mean to denigrate the NYT - they produce some excellent reporting, but it seems that from a business perspective there is something askew here. The Guardian in the UK has managed to do exactly what was expected - the proportion of their staff who are journalists has increased steadily for a decade as their revenue split has shifted towards subscription, and their finances have steadily improved (they're still not in the black, but it looks like they will be this year, for the first time since the business model fell apart). On the other side, it seems like the NYT are posting profits, but without fundamentally reshaping the business.
There is a massive backlash in this thread against dark patterns to prevent subscriber loss and continued advertising even after subscription. It feels like the company may be selling the goodwill and brand value that are the cornerstone to the reader-funded, reader-focused new age of journalism in order to get their profit margins looking healthy, despite failing to cut overheads, which is where the profit increases in this new model ought to be coming from.
I would really, deeply like to be shown to be wrong. We need sustainable, reader-funded businesses producing great journalism and I want to think the NYT is one of them.
I really struggle with that. That isn't how this is supposed to work. Escaping the broken advertising model and moving to a reader-funded model is supposed to give you scope to shake off overheads, to clarify your business's purpose and to slimline and focus operations to improve the quality of content at the price point. That's the mantra for the new renaissance of journalism, in which the NYT has been hailed as a massive success story.
I don't by any means mean to denigrate the NYT - they produce some excellent reporting, but it seems that from a business perspective there is something askew here. The Guardian in the UK has managed to do exactly what was expected - the proportion of their staff who are journalists has increased steadily for a decade as their revenue split has shifted towards subscription, and their finances have steadily improved (they're still not in the black, but it looks like they will be this year, for the first time since the business model fell apart). On the other side, it seems like the NYT are posting profits, but without fundamentally reshaping the business.
There is a massive backlash in this thread against dark patterns to prevent subscriber loss and continued advertising even after subscription. It feels like the company may be selling the goodwill and brand value that are the cornerstone to the reader-funded, reader-focused new age of journalism in order to get their profit margins looking healthy, despite failing to cut overheads, which is where the profit increases in this new model ought to be coming from.
I would really, deeply like to be shown to be wrong. We need sustainable, reader-funded businesses producing great journalism and I want to think the NYT is one of them.
[1] https://s1.q4cdn.com/156149269/files/doc_financials/annual/2... (page 55)