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| New York Times v Washington Post – a tale of two strategies | New York Times v Washington Post – a tale of two strategies |
| (4 months later) | |
| The Washington Post's financials provide a good glance at the current status of legacy media struggling with the shift to digital. Unlike others large dailies, the components of the Post's P&L clearly appear in its statements, they are not buried under layers of other activities. | The Washington Post's financials provide a good glance at the current status of legacy media struggling with the shift to digital. Unlike others large dailies, the components of the Post's P&L clearly appear in its statements, they are not buried under layers of other activities. |
| Product-wise, the Post remains a great news machine, collecting Pulitzer Prizes with clockwork regularity and fighting hard for scoops. The Post also epitomises an old media under siege from specialised, more agile outlets such as Politico, ones that break down the once-unified coverage provided by traditional large media houses. In an interview to the New York Times last year, Robert G Kaiser, a former editor who had been with the paper since 1963, said this: "When I was managing editor of the Washington Post, everything we did was better than anyone in the business," he said. "We had the best weather, the best comics, the best news report, the fullest news report. Today, there's a competitor who does every element of what we do, and many of them do it better. We've lost our edge in some very profound and fundamental ways." | Product-wise, the Post remains a great news machine, collecting Pulitzer Prizes with clockwork regularity and fighting hard for scoops. The Post also epitomises an old media under siege from specialised, more agile outlets such as Politico, ones that break down the once-unified coverage provided by traditional large media houses. In an interview to the New York Times last year, Robert G Kaiser, a former editor who had been with the paper since 1963, said this: "When I was managing editor of the Washington Post, everything we did was better than anyone in the business," he said. "We had the best weather, the best comics, the best news report, the fullest news report. Today, there's a competitor who does every element of what we do, and many of them do it better. We've lost our edge in some very profound and fundamental ways." |
| The iconic newspaper has been slow to adapt to the digital era. Its transformation really started around 2008. Since then, it has checked all the required boxes: integration of print and digital productions; editors are now involved on both sides of the news production and all relentlessly push the newsroom to write more for the digital version; many blogs covering a wide array of topics have been launched; and the Post now has a good mobile application. | The iconic newspaper has been slow to adapt to the digital era. Its transformation really started around 2008. Since then, it has checked all the required boxes: integration of print and digital productions; editors are now involved on both sides of the news production and all relentlessly push the newsroom to write more for the digital version; many blogs covering a wide array of topics have been launched; and the Post now has a good mobile application. |
| The "quant" culture also set in, with editors now taking into account all the usual metrics and ratios associated with digital operations, including a live update of Google's most relevant keywords prominently displayed in the newsroom. All this helped the Post collect 25.6 million unique visitors per month, v 4 to 5 million for Politico, and 35 million for the New York Times that historically enjoys a more global audience. | The "quant" culture also set in, with editors now taking into account all the usual metrics and ratios associated with digital operations, including a live update of Google's most relevant keywords prominently displayed in the newsroom. All this helped the Post collect 25.6 million unique visitors per month, v 4 to 5 million for Politico, and 35 million for the New York Times that historically enjoys a more global audience. |
Overall, the Washington Post Company still relies heavily on its education business, as shown in the table below :Revenue: $4.0bn (-3% vs. 2011) But the education business no is longer the cash cow it used to be. Not only did its revenue decrease but, last year, it lost $105m (£68m) v a $96m profit in 2011. As for the newspaper operation, it widened its losses to $53m in 2012 from $21m in 2011. And the trend worsens: for the first quarter of 2013, the newspaper division's revenue decreased by 4% compared to a year ago and it lost $34m v $21m for Q1 2011. | Overall, the Washington Post Company still relies heavily on its education business, as shown in the table below :Revenue: $4.0bn (-3% vs. 2011) But the education business no is longer the cash cow it used to be. Not only did its revenue decrease but, last year, it lost $105m (£68m) v a $96m profit in 2011. As for the newspaper operation, it widened its losses to $53m in 2012 from $21m in 2011. And the trend worsens: for the first quarter of 2013, the newspaper division's revenue decreased by 4% compared to a year ago and it lost $34m v $21m for Q1 2011. |
| Now, let's move to a longer-term perspective. The chart below sums up the Post's (and others legacy media's) problem: | Now, let's move to a longer-term perspective. The chart below sums up the Post's (and others legacy media's) problem: |
Translated into a table:Q1-2007 Q1-2013 Change % A huge depletion in print advertising, a flat line (at best) for digital advertising, the elements sum up the equation faced by traditional newspapers going from print to online. | Translated into a table:Q1-2007 Q1-2013 Change % A huge depletion in print advertising, a flat line (at best) for digital advertising, the elements sum up the equation faced by traditional newspapers going from print to online. |
| Now, let's look at the circulation side using a comparison with the New York Times. (Note that it's not possible to extract the same figures for advertising from the NYT Co's financial statements because they aggregate too many items.) The chart below shows the evolution of the paid circulation for the Post between 2007 and 2013: | Now, let's look at the circulation side using a comparison with the New York Times. (Note that it's not possible to extract the same figures for advertising from the NYT Co's financial statements because they aggregate too many items.) The chart below shows the evolution of the paid circulation for the Post between 2007 and 2013: |
| ..and for the NY Times: | ..and for the NY Times: |
| Call it the paywall effect: The New York Times now aggregates both print and digital circulations. The latter now amounts to 676,000 digital subscribers that have been recruited using the NYT's metered system (see previous Monday Notes under the "paywall" tag). (Altogether, digital subscribers to the NYT, the International Herald and the Boston Globe now number 708,000). It seems the NYT found the right formula: its digital subscribers portfolio grows at a 45% per year rate, thanks to a combination of sophisticated marketing, mining customer data and aggressive pricing (it even pushes special deals for Mother's Day.) All this adds to the bottom line: if each digital sub brings $12 a month, the result is about $100m that didn't exist two years ago. But it does not benefit the advertising side as it continues to suffer. For the first quarter of 2013 v the same period last year, the NYT Company lost 13% in print ads revenue and 4% for digital ads. (As usual in their earning calls, NYT officials mention the deflationary effects of ad exchanges as one cause of erosion in digital ads.) | Call it the paywall effect: The New York Times now aggregates both print and digital circulations. The latter now amounts to 676,000 digital subscribers that have been recruited using the NYT's metered system (see previous Monday Notes under the "paywall" tag). (Altogether, digital subscribers to the NYT, the International Herald and the Boston Globe now number 708,000). It seems the NYT found the right formula: its digital subscribers portfolio grows at a 45% per year rate, thanks to a combination of sophisticated marketing, mining customer data and aggressive pricing (it even pushes special deals for Mother's Day.) All this adds to the bottom line: if each digital sub brings $12 a month, the result is about $100m that didn't exist two years ago. But it does not benefit the advertising side as it continues to suffer. For the first quarter of 2013 v the same period last year, the NYT Company lost 13% in print ads revenue and 4% for digital ads. (As usual in their earning calls, NYT officials mention the deflationary effects of ad exchanges as one cause of erosion in digital ads.) |
| One additional sign that digital advertising will remain in the doldrums: Politico, too, is exploring alternatives; it will be testing a paywall in a sample of six states and for its readers outside the United States. The system will be comparable to the NYT.com or the FT.com, with a fixed number of articles available for free. Says Politico's management in a memo: | One additional sign that digital advertising will remain in the doldrums: Politico, too, is exploring alternatives; it will be testing a paywall in a sample of six states and for its readers outside the United States. The system will be comparable to the NYT.com or the FT.com, with a fixed number of articles available for free. Says Politico's management in a memo: |
| It is increasingly clear that readers are more willing than we once thought to pay for content they value and enjoy. With more than 300 media companies now charging for online content in the US, the notion of paying to read expensive-to-produce journalism is no longer that exotic for sophisticated consumers. | It is increasingly clear that readers are more willing than we once thought to pay for content they value and enjoy. With more than 300 media companies now charging for online content in the US, the notion of paying to read expensive-to-produce journalism is no longer that exotic for sophisticated consumers. |
| – frederic.filloux@mondaynote.com | – frederic.filloux@mondaynote.com |
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