Is this week’s news from the New York Times a signal to break out the champagne or is it merely an opportunity to retain a sense of cautious optimism?
The New York Times claims it now has one million digital-only subscribers. Times Executive Editor, Dean Baquet, touted the milestone in an October 5, 2015 NYT article. He writes,
“We still employ as many reporters as we did 15 years ago — and our ranks now include graphics editors, developers, video journalists and other digital innovators who are making our digital offerings ever richer. They are not deskbound aggregators, either. Their job is to find new information that they are using to help our readers make sense of the world.”
Anyone who has watched the 2011 documentary Page One: Inside the New York Times may be dubious of Baquet’s claims of employing “as many reporters as we did 15 years ago.” Key scenes in the film show a newsroom in anguish after managers lay off more than 100 people.
Still, the news from the Times seems like a positive development in the journalism world. Is it? Let’s go beyond the headline.
Matthew Ingram of Fortune cautions it’s not really time to take a deep breath and break out the party hats. In his August 2015 article, “Here’s what the New York Times 1 million subscriber number means,” he writes,
“In the latest quarter, (New York Times) revenue from print ads fell by another 13% over the previous year, which means at the end of the year the NYT will have about $75 million less in revenue than it would otherwise. Even if the digital subscriber base continues to grow by 33,000 per quarter — as it did in the most recent quarter — the company will still be under water when it comes to revenues. Paywalls are more like a wall of sandbags than anything else, and the wall is still leaking.”
Ingram goes on to write,
“As I’ve argued before, the media industry in general — and particularly the newspaper market — is starting to look like a barbell: If you are large and have a powerful brand name and global scale, the way that publishers like the New York Times and The Guardian do, you will probably be fine, eventually. And if you are a tiny, focused publisher who commands a topic niche or a geographical niche, you can probably also do well. Between those two lies the valley of death.”
How can media outlets in the so-called “valley of death” work to keep their organizations on a healthy financial plain? The answer may come from several ideas proposed at a recent Online News Association Conference. Three panelists, Mary Brown, publisher of Voice of San Diego, Evan Smith, editor in chief of Texas Tribune, and Joy Robins, SVP of Global Revenue and Strategy for Quartz shared their ideas during a panel called “The Revenue Review: Memberships, Advertising, and Events. “
The panelists shared several concrete ideas to strengthen the financial support for news coverage. For example, media outlets could explore creating a “membership program” similar to the business model currently used in public broadcasting. News organizations could build a relationship with audience members and increase loyalty by hosting low-cost gatherings on a college campus. New tools to revitalize digital advertising could help increase ad revenues.
Information about the panel is outlined in a Columbia Journalism Review article.
Media industry watchers say the New York Times paywall has proven to be the most successful paywall in newspaper history. That may be true in the short term. We’ll have to see how long the party lasts.