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The New York Times passes the 10 million subscriber barrier. A 210,000 bump in net digital-only subscribers brought that total number to 9.41 million and its 670,000 print subscribers put it over the 10 million mark overall. The company’s growth is at least in part due to its expansion beyond providing the news to customers. It says that close to 3.8 million of its digital subscribers have signed up for at least one of the company’s other offerings—Cooking, Games, the Wirecutter product review vertical and the sports-focused The Athletic. Adjusted operating profit for Q3 2023 was $89.8 million, up 30.1 percent from a year earlier. The Times still has the stated goal of reaching 15 million subscribers by the end of 2027.
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Vice Media, which pulled the plug on its flagship program “Vice News Tonight” in April and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy shortly afterward as it went on the auction block, has now laid off dozens more of its staffers. The company’s co-chief executives, Bruce Dixon and Hozefa Lokhandwala said the cuts were part of a plan to “restructure our overall corporate organization” by consolidating the newsroom’s five divisions into two lines of business—with publishing, news and creative services operating as one unit and studios along with TV and distribution operating as the other. In June, Vice was purchased by three investment companies, including Fortress Investment Group, for $350 million. In keeping with its reputation as a digital pioneer, Vice let the staffers go via what a Vice Union statement called “a livestream video that gave attendees no opportunity to ask questions.”
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Jezebel, the feminist web site that launched in 2007, has been shut down by owner G/O Media, which also owns The Onion, Jalopnik and Gizmodo. The company says that 23 staffers, including the Jezebel team, have been laid off. G/O Media’s editorial director Merrill Brown is also leaving the company. In announcing the closure, G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller cited “economic headwinds” and changes in audience priorities as major factors behind the shutdown. Spanfeller also said that the company had talked with over two dozen potential buyers” in an effort to keep Jezebel going, but those efforts were unsuccessful.
Trump Media & Technology Group today reported a $58.2M net loss on $4.1M in 2023 revenues, a disclosure that drove its stock price down 22.6 percent to $47.96.
Barry Pollack, an attorney at Wall Street’s Harris St. Laurent & Wechsler, has registered Julian Assange as a client with the Justice Dept. “out of an abundance of caution.”
Paramount Global to slash 800 jobs in what chief executive Bob Bakish calls part of an effort to “return the company to earnings growth"... Rolling Stone editor-in-chief Noah Shachtman is exiting at the end of the month due to disagreements with chief executive Gus Wenner over the direction the magazine is taking... The New York Times broke the $1 billion barrier in annual revenue from digital subscriptions in 2023... Press Forward is investing more than $500 million to strengthen local newsrooms.
The majority of news articles are read within the first three days of publication, according to a recent report.
The Los Angeles Times gives pink slips to 115 people or 20 percent of its newsroom staff... TIME is also laying off about 30 employees, which is approximately 15 percent of its editorial staff... The Baltimore Banner, which was launched by Stewart Bainum in 2022 after he failed to buy the Baltimore Sun, added 500 subscribers per day in the three days following Sinclair Broadcast Group's deal to purchase the Sun.
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