NYTimes: The gold standard of journalism?
The Wall Street Journal has posted the prepared remarks of Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., chairman of The New York Times Company, and Janet Robinson, president and chief executive officer, for their annual stockholders meeting. It is worth a read, and especially, noteworthy that they centered the talk around preserving The New York Times as “the gold standard of journalism.”
Here are some interesting statistics from Sulzberger:
NYTimes.com is the world’s largest newspaper Web site.
It is also No. 1 in audience engagement- in the number of pages read by users and the amount of time they spend with us – outpacing other newspaper Web sites across the nation and around the world.
NYTimes.com’s reach in the U.S. is 30% greater than our nearest competitor, up from 14% just two years ago,
And when we combine NYTimes.com with Boston.com, About.com, IHT.com and our regional Web sites, our Company ranges between the 9th and 13th largest Web presence on the Internet. That is against all companies – from Google and Yahoo! to Amazon and CNET.
Here are some from Robinson:
The New York Times brand audience is more robust than ever. Today, between The New York Times newspaper and NYTimes.com, we reach 17.3 million readers, a gain of almost two million from 2004. And independent research studies show that the weekday Times is considered by opinion leaders to be the most influential brand among all media.
A particularly important target group for us is young adults. The “Fall 2006 Student Monitor Study” report, the only nationally syndicated market research study of the college student market, found that The Times is the No. 1 newspaper read among college students, with 1 million college readers in print and over 800,000 more online readers each week.
That explains why the average age of The Times reader in print has not fundamentally changed in over a decade – 43 years old for the daily and 47 for Sunday. That also happens to be around the average age of NYTimes.com readers….
In 2006, our Internet revenues made up more than 8% of our total revenues, compared with just 4% in 2004. Last year our online advertising revenue grew 41%.
However, as there is a lot of talk about quality journalism, there are also some telling details in the remarks. For example, from Robinson:
Last year we sold our 50% investment in the Discovery Times Channel for $100 million. While Discovery was an award-winning venture, we felt we could make more of an impact, as well as more revenue, by focusing on the short-form Web video which is driving traffic
So they sold their “award winning venture” and bought Calorie-Count.com. They did so I guess to trim the fat. Speaking of which Robinson, added:
Later this year The Times will reduce the width of the paper from 13.5 inches to the evolving industry standard of 12 inches, providing us with approximately $10 million in annualized savings. The Boston Globe will shortly follow.
However, here is what worries me the most about the future of The New York Times. Here is Robinson, and please notice who is missing, you and me, the audience. It is as if we did not exist we did not exist in this era of journalism as conversation:
We have and continue to elicit ideas and analysis from within the organization.
We have and continue to make use of the considerable expertise of our extraordinary directors.
We have and continue to listen to some of the nation’s most well-regarded business consultants.
And we have and continue to listen to our shareholders.
Romenesko has more about the stockholder revolt, but who I wonder will address the concerns of you and me; those of us who actually provide the money and eyeballs for all The New York Times revenue and who care deeply about quality journalism.