The popular "New York Times" newspaper published low income figures for the end of 2023, and explained that the result was due to coverage of difficult stories that advertisers preferred to avoid, such as the war in Israel.
In a time of layoffs and takeovers at major news organizations, The New York Times is one of the few newspapers that has continued to grow.
However, the fourth quarter report for 2023 published last night nevertheless showed that the company is not completely immune to the swinging market, and there is no expectation of improvement in the first quarter this year.
The New York Times office building./Unsplash
"Our digital performance, including podcasts, has been impacted by advertisers' experience of hard news topics such as the conflict in the Middle East"
"We continue to experience limited visibility in the advertising market," said financial director William Bardin with the shareholders. In the fourth quarter in sales from advertising of The Times, revenues decreased by 8.4% compared to last year to 164.1 million dollars.
In its Q3 earnings report, the company's forecast expected fourth-quarter advertising revenue to fluctuate between a mid-single-percentage decrease and a low-single-percentage increase.
Now, it appears the Times doesn't expect that to improve in Q1 2024, with a mid-single-percentage drop in advertising revenue expected. overall compared to last year. Also, digital advertising sales fell 3.7% to $107.7 million in Q4 2023, compared to $111.9 million in Q4 2022.
Times CEO Meredith Cupit Levin blamed several factors for this decline, including Advertisers' experience of covering hard news such as the war in Israel, declines in revenue from podcasts and creative services, and there were five fewer days in Q4 2023 compared to Q4 2022. Levin said: "Our digital performance, including podcasts, was affected by advertisers' experience of hard news such as The conflict in the Middle East".
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