Doubling Digital Revenue at NYT; 3Q Results Say It Won't Be Easy
Can the New York Times track its doubling of digital revenue goal, to $800 million, by 2020?
I explored the nuances and arithmetic of the strategy two weeks ago (“Newsonomics: The thinking (and dollars) behind The New York Times’ new digital strategy”) and talked to CEO Mark Thompson about it.
This morning, the Times’ released its third-quarter earnings news. So what does the quarter tell us about that goal?
It’s doable, but won’t be easy.
Our guideposts are similar: If digital advertising and digital-only subs grew at about 12.5% annually, we’d see the doubling.
The digital reader revenue number passed the test, coming in at 14% year over year, for the quarter. There, the Times saw its greatest quarterly growth in three years, adding 51,000 to a new total of 1,041,000.
The digital ad number didn’t pass muster. In fact, digital ad revenue flagged for 3Q, down 5.0%. That might seem like an alarm, but it might be a blip. Traditionally, the third quarter is the Times’ smallest in advertising, and a few lost campaigns can produce a quarterly swing. The company did note that that the fourth quarter would be back up, but only in the mid-single digits, not close to that 12.5% benchmark. Overall, the second half of the year won’t come close to matching its first-half, double-digit digital ad revenue progress.
With four years to go til the 2020 target, one quarterly report doesn’t a whole lot, and Mark Thompson knew those numbers when he issued “The Path Forward document, outlining the goal. Still, progress toward that goal is worth tracking, as the Times has plainly set one kind of standard for the newspaper industry.
