From Podcasts To Features, New York Times Leans Into Video To Fuel Future Growth.

The New York Times plans to continue its pivot toward video, as CEO Meredith Kopit Levien says the success of video versions of podcasts like The Ezra Klein Show, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat and Cannonball with Wesley Morrisis helping to show the way forward. During a Wednesday earnings call with analysts, she said the video focus for the company is on three areas, including producing more video versions of podcasts, producing news videos featuring their reporters, and creating sports and lifestyle feature content.

“Our video expansion represents an important and ambitious approach to how we reach and engage people,” Kopit Levien said. “The expertise and global presence of our newsroom, combined with increasing online video consumption create a big opportunity for the Times to capture a greater share of attention. We believe our efforts in this area can make watching the Times as natural and compelling an experience as reading and listening.” 

Video is doing more to increase expenses than revenue for the time being, however. But the Times reports overall revenue grew during the second quarter to $685.9 million, a 9.7% increase from a year ago. The company does not release podcast-specific results. But it does say that digital advertising revenues increased 18.7% from a year earlier to $94.4 million due mainly to new advertising supply in areas of strong marketer demand.

“This performance reflects our strategy to create a larger, more durable digital ad business is working,” Kopit Levien said. “That entails having a portfolio of compelling brands in spaces with broad marketer appeal, particularly sports and games.”

In sports, The Athletic revenues increased 33.4% in the second quarter to $54 million. Its podcast revenue wasn’t broken out, but the Times reports The Athletic’s subscription revenues increased 18.1% while advertising revenue nearly doubled from a year ago — it increased 98.8% to $14.1 million from $7.1 million in the second quarter — primarily due to higher revenues from display advertising.

“We increasingly see the ad business like we see the consumer business. We are in big spaces with really broad marketer skills, particularly in lifestyle spaces like sports in addition to news,” Kopit Levien said. The Times now has 11.88 million total subscribers to its print and digital products, and she said they benefit from having a large audience that can be targeted at scale with growing efficiency thanks to new AI-powered ad tools. “All of that together allows us to be a real option for marketers who are looking for really high-quality brand association and also high reach and high impact,” she told analysts.

Looking ahead to the third quarter, The Times forecast digital advertising will increase low double-digits from a year ago.