Record New Customer Record, The New York Times Advertising Revenue Even Decreased

The New York Times. (Wikimedia Commons/Billie Grace Ward)

JAKARTA - New York-based media company The New York Times has set a new record for the number of subscribers in line with the increase in subscribers in 2020, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, social unrest and the holding of the Presidential Election.

In the company's fourth quarter report, it was stated that last year there were an additional 2.3 million special digital subscribers in 2020. So that customers for printed and digital newspaper products reached 7.5 million subscribers.

The biggest increase is said to have occurred in the first and fourth quarters of 2020. In the first quarter, there were an additional 669,000 subscribers at the start of the pandemic, with Americans for weeks living their routines remotely online.

The next moment that saw a significant increase in the number of subscribers was in the fourth quarter, which was the United States Presidential Election on November 3. At this moment, there are an additional 627 thousand digital subscribers.

“In 2020, we reach two important milestones, both of which we hope will last. Digital revenue is surpassing print for the first time, and digital subscription revenue, which is our fastest growing revenue stream, is now also our largest, "said Meredith Kopit Levien, the company's chief executive in a statement to The New York Times.

"These two milestones, and our best year on record for subscriptions, mark the end of the first decade of The Times' transformation into the first digital, subscription-focused company," he added.

For this year, The Times' flagship digital offering, its news product, won 1.7 million subscribers, a 48 percent increase over 2019. More than five million Times subscriptions are just news products.

Other digital offerings, such as Cooking and Games apps, acquired more than 600,000 subscriptions in 2020, up 66 percent, for a total of about 1.6 million. The remaining subscriptions, about 833,000, are for print newspapers.

In the fourth quarter, digital subscription revenue was US $ 167 million, up 37 percent from the final months of 2019. For this year, US $ 598.3 million, up 30 percent. Total subscription revenue in 2020 increased 10 percent, to US $ 1.195 billion.

The New York Times. (Wikimedia Commons / Americasroof)

Advertising decreased

However, The New York Times also had a downside last year, namely a drop in ad revenue. The COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused many business people to refrain from even closing their businesses, has an impact on the media industry.

The Times' total ad revenue fell 26 percent in 2020 to just around US $ 392.4 million. The largest decrease occurred in the print advertising revenue sector, where the decline reached 39 percent.

In the fourth quarter, digital ad revenue fell 2 percent from a year earlier, to $ 90.1 million. Print ad revenue fell 38 percent in the fourth quarter, to $ 49.1 million. The decline in print advertising was accelerated by the pandemic but is also associated with a larger trend. In the quarter, 65 percent of total advertising revenue came from digital, compared with 54 percent a year earlier.

Fourth quarter revenue was 509.4 million US dollars, up 0.2 percent from 2019. Adjusted operating profit increased 1.4 percent from the fourth quarter of 2019, to 97.7 million US dollars, and 0.9 percent over the year, to 250.6 million US dollars.

The increase in the number of subscribers last year put The Times on the right track, in line with its target of having 10 million subscribers by 2025. This is something to be grateful for, considering that this addition occurred even though The Times began charging fees for online content in 201, increasing the prices of some digital news subscriptions.

"With a billion people reading digital news, and an expected 100 million willing to pay for it in English, it's not hard to imagine that, over time, The Times' customer base could be much larger than it is today," explained The New York Times CEO Meredith Kopit Levien. .

In its report, The Times also projects an increase of about 15 percent in total subscription revenue in the first quarter of this year compared to the first quarter of 2020. It also targets a 35 to 40 percent increase in digital subscription revenue. However, this quarter's ad revenue is expected to fall slightly less than 20 percent.

Interestingly, The New York Times also announced an increase in dividend payouts to investors, from 6 cents to 7 cents per share, although this would cost the company around 46.8 million US dollars in losses. This is the second time in a year that the company has agreed to raise dividends that are said to benefit the Ochs-Sulzberger family that controls The Times.