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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.
WNET, the nation’s largest public media company, names Edward O’Keefe its next president and CEO, effective September 21. O’Keefe succeeds Neal Shapiro, who becomes president emeritus and will retire at the end of the year... The Stealth Bot Prohibition Act, which would empower news publishers and other content providers to defend themselves by mandating transparency for all bots crawling their sites, in introduced in the House by Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL) and Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-NC)... Google gets socked by European Union regulators with a $1 billion fine for using the platform’s dominance as a search engine to illegally undercut competition.
Boston Globe Media acquires InstaTrac, a company that provides subscription-based services aimed at making government information easier to find, track, and understand... AARP names former New Republic CEO and publisher Michael Caruso as its SVP and chief content officer, unifying the organization's portfolio of media, live events and digital platforms... The Fund for American Studies, an educational nonprofit, awards its inaugural Journalism Excellence Fellowships.
Trump Media and Technology Group Corp. has replaced CEO and former California Congressman Devin Nunes with Kevin McGurn, a seasoned media sales executive.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is being bought by the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism, a nonprofit that is the parent organization of the Baltimore Banner... The British Broadcasting Corporation is axing approximately 2,000 jobs, about 10 percent of its work force... Snap, the company behind Snapchat, is also succumbing to layoff fever, announcing plans to lay off 16 percent of its employees, about 1,000 people.
CBS News Radio will go off the air on May 22, part of the axe-swinging managerial plan put into play by CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss... The Economist, which was first published in 1843, is changing hands. Canadian billionaire Stephen Smith has agreed to acquire a 26.9 percent stake in the publication from Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, her family and family foundation... Nexstar Media Group says it has closed its acquisition of TEGNA, the broadcast, digital media and marketing services company that was formed in 2015, when the Gannett Company split into two publicly traded companies.
