
The New York Times Is Now Supported by Readers, Not Advertisers - shrikant
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/07/new-york-times-supported-by-readers-not-advertisers.html
======
JumpCrisscross
The Economist Group, parent of _The Economist_ , made 48.9% of revenue from
circulation and 35.08% from advertising for fiscal year 2012 [1].

[1]
[http://www.economistgroup.com/results_and_governance/annual_...](http://www.economistgroup.com/results_and_governance/annual_and_interim_reports.html)

~~~
hamidpalo
Not a fair comparison IMHO. NYT delivers mostly news, and despite their
quality, there plenty of other substitutable sources of news.

The Economist on the other hand is mostly analysis, and have extremely
dedicated readers who gladly pay the premium.

~~~
eru
The Economist's newsstand price is quite high, but if you have a subscription,
it's not that much of a premium that I have to `gladly pay'. I am quite a
dedicated reader, though, and read the thing cover to cover almost every week.

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warfangle
The key to the fourth estate is to separate it from biased monetary concerns:
government funding (can be cut if critical of the government) and corporate
funding (aka ads- if you criticize the advertisers, they leave).

If news can effectively transition to direct reader support, it is a good
thing for everyone.

NYT has yet to prove that this direction is profitable...

~~~
austenallred
I disagree; corporate funding (ads and advertisers) need not have influence
over the institution itself in order to place ads in a news source. From a
journalistic standpoint, your value is based upon how trustworthy you are as a
company. If you are trustworthy, you have readers, and you will never be short
on advertisers.

Readers can stop reading if the newspaper stops agreeing with its viewpoints
perhaps even more readily than advertisers can. Coming from Utah most of the
uber-conservatives that live near me mock the New York Times as propaganda yet
watch Fox News and call it "truth." Unfortunately, as was mentioned offhand in
Aaron Sorkin's "Newsroom," today, "People don't choose the opinions they want,
they choose the facts they want." Reader supported is just as prone to bias as
is corporate supported.

~~~
lukifer
> If you are trustworthy, you have readers, and you will never be short on
> advertisers.

This works extremely well with small publishers or niche markets: Mother Jones
can criticize Monsanto while publishing ads for organic food, and Penny Arcade
can make fun of Blizzard while still running Blizzar ads (they can always run
ads from Valve instead if they don't).

But for a mass market publisher like NYT, a large advertiser with a steady ad
budget absolutely wields an influence over content, even if they never say a
word. Suits at media companies have every incentive not to rock the boat, and
so soften stories, or simply focus more effort on news that is unlikely to
threaten ad revenue (ie, crime and celebrity news). Occasionally, this kind of
self-censorship is blatant, like the infamous Fox/Monsanto milk hormone story,
but usually the effect is subtle, like the warping of a gravitational field.

Admittedly, readers _do_ create their own distortion effect on news, perhaps
even bigger than advertisers. But since that's a factor either way, I still
see reduced reliance on advertising as a positive trend in mass media.

------
veidr
TL;DR NY times now gets (slightly) more revenue from paying subscribers than
advertisers, but they still lost $88 million last quarter.

I think it's an interesting milestone, and wonder how many other papers have
now had that happen (and how many were already doing that).

EDIT: mention the loss

~~~
latch
I'd add the fact that they had a quarterly net loss of $88.1 million to you
TL;DR.

~~~
protomyth
The real headline is that the NYT is supported by neither, but gets more money
from subscribers than advertisers. It will be interesting to see if they can
get enough subscribers to become profitable again.

~~~
rationalbeats
It doesn't matter.

The NYTimes is the official mouthpiece for the US government, no matter who is
in the White House. They will never be allowed to fail. (until some other
mouthpiece for the White House emerges)

Before you 'junk' me, why not read the words the editor of the NYTimes, Bill
Keller, spoke 2 years ago:

[http://ggdrafts.blogspot.com.br/2012/07/bill-keller-and-
us-g...](http://ggdrafts.blogspot.com.br/2012/07/bill-keller-and-us-
government.html)

~~~
Locke1689
That blogpost in no way supports your statement. In fact, quite the opposite.

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sudonim
I want the NY Times to stay around, so I bought their digital delivery. What
rubs me the wrong way is the arbitrary distinction between devices...

You pay more for nytimes.com + iPhone + iPad. It's a little silly. Charge me 1
price regardless of where I consume it! I bought the full $4.38 / week plan
but I think it's too much when it goes to $8.75. I can switch to paying $3.75
and just instapaper all the articles I want to my iPad.

[https://img.skitch.com/20120730-xky5qiifbdf2ki122swbwnbhb3.p...](https://img.skitch.com/20120730-xky5qiifbdf2ki122swbwnbhb3.png)

~~~
jaaron
In my case, it was cheaper to pay for a physical Sunday delivery subscription
which includes digital. I don't really want the Sunday paper, but it's a
better deal.

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j45
Newspapers are no longer the primary, or most effective connecting point for
ideas and information between people.

From where I see it, Tomorrow's generation simply doesn't use newspapers the
same way as anyone has in the last 200 years.

Paywalls are another kiss of death for newspapers that are already searching
for relevancy in today's world. I have zero clue why they're doing them again,
they had tried them before and failed. Short of industry wide collusion, if
one paper in town charges, and the other doesn't, all the online traffic will
go to the free one. Not to mention we can get more information, quicker, from
multiple sources online and it's only going to get easier.

The rise of bloggers on newspaper websites shows how many other places we're
willing to get our information.

I don't want newspapers to go away. I like the experience of reading a paper.
It's almost relaxing compared to the constant distractions from screens.

Still they're massively laying off people and not publishing on certain days.
Newspapers need to find a way to make money and be sustainable. Maybe there's
a middle of a new kind of subscription of not getting access to the articles
right away without paying.

My background: Worked in the newspaper industry for 4 years around the last
dotcom boom. Remember the horror then..

~~~
hkmurakami
With the proliferation of "noise news" online, I find that my two options for
filtering the noise are (1) peer curated sites like HN, or (2) to pay for
(what is hopefully) quality writing from sources such as NYT or the Economist.

~~~
j45
Peer-curation seems to get me information just fine, if not a wider variety
that isn't filtered through the eyes of one editor.

------
heyitsnick
From the comments thread:

> "I used to do the NYT but after the subscription thing I discovered the BBC
> News is much more focused on the US than you would expect."

The BBC, of course, has always been funded by the readers, and not the
advertisers. Just not US readers.

~~~
dmcintosh
The majority of the BBC's revenue comes from the British government, which
mandates a nearly £146 "licensing fee" to every person in Britain who receives
access to broadcast television. Source:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC#Revenue>

This in stark contrast to the NYT, where readers voluntarily opt to fund the
paper by purchasing subscriptions.

~~~
evoxed
However much like NHK here in Japan, it wouldn't be at all surprising if many
people simply snubbed the collections guy because they don't own a TV, don't
watch BBC, or just don't want to pay.

~~~
heyitsnick
Not true in the UK. Evasion is very low.

"The latest official evasion rate for the United Kingdom is 5.2% of all
licensable places (for the 2009/10 financial year). The official evasion rate
estimates the percentage (not the number) of all premises (not individuals or
households) evading the licence fee in the UK. It is calculated for the
Department for Culture, Media and Sport using a model that compares the number
of licences in force to external statistics on the number of households and
other licensable places in the UK."

This is based on data that suggests "Under 3% of UK households don’t have a
television set (this figure does not include other premises like businesses)."
Approximately 25 million TV licenses are in force.

Possibly there is more evasion in things like holiday homes and caravans,
which should be licensed. But generally data suggests, as does my anecotal
evidence, that most UK home-owners just see the TV license as a standard bill
that is paid annually.

[http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/about/foi-licences-facts-and-
fi...](http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/about/foi-licences-facts-and-figures-
AB18/)

~~~
evoxed
Interesting, thanks for the info. This article
(<http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20060801zg.html>) is a couple years old
but give a decent summary in English of what the situation is here. An
official billing with all the necessary legal documentation would probably go
a lot further than some of the goons going around as collection agents.

------
austenallred
"Supported by the readers" is an extremely (and intentionally) misleading
title. Reader revenue has only just surpassed advertiser revenue, and The New
York Times still has huge net losses quarter after quarter (this round we're
talking $88.1 million).

Also, I can't be the only one that finds the tone of the article ironic
considering how hard it was to work your way through the spammy ads before
actually reading it.

------
halayli
I bought the digital subscription then I cancelled it after I kept seeing ads.
I hope this changed.

~~~
natrius
Publications can charge more to advertise to paying customers.

~~~
halayli
They are just too greedy.

~~~
natrius
Is that really the right word to use? Greedy people have enough of something
but still want more. The New York Times is _losing_ money. I don't think any
of their efforts to make money could be called greedy.

~~~
halayli
It's not my fault if they are operating at a very high cost is it? A company
that wants me to pay for its content and sprinkle its ads around it is greedy
for sure.

Paid content or ads. Pick one. Picking both obviously isn't working.

------
yason
This is expected. The "free" income from advertising goes down, many papers
who only make a partial effort get in trouble, leaving more of the market
free, and then the best papers who do have real value and produce real value
conquer that market. That's because people are willing to pay for their paper
if only they can choose theirs from a smaller set of quality papers rather
than from a gazillion advertisement-funded attempts at journalism.

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melvinmt
What I don't get about newspapers in the US in general, is that it seems that
their adoption is extremely low, compared to European countries. NY Times,
supposedly the third largest newspaper, has a daily circulation of 1mm whereas
_De Telegraaf_ (the biggest newspaper in The Netherlands, a country with a
population of only 16mm) has a daily circulation of 700K!

Why is that, don't people read newspapers in the US?

~~~
molo
The New York City metro area has a population of about 20M. NYT has only
really expanded into the national market in the last 15 years. It is primarily
a local/regional paper. NYC has a higher periodical subscription rate than
other regions, partly due to the reliance on mass transit. NYT competes with
the Wall Street Journal and other local/regional dailies.

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cagenut
That is some top-notch lede burying.

