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The New York Times continues to improve its financial performance, the company revealed in its first-quarter 2025 results, which were released on May 7. The NYT added about 250,000 digital-only subscribers, compared to the end of Q4 2024—bringing its number of total digital-only subscribers to 11.06M. With the addition of its 600,000 print subscribers, the overall subscriber number hit 11.66M. By the end of 2027, the company aims to have 15M subscribers. Despite a 5.8 percent jump in operating costs, the NYT’s operating profit still rose 21.9 percent from Q1 2024. Digital advertising was up 12.4 percent to $70.9M, while print ad revenues slid 8.5 percent to $37.2 M. In addition, close to half (49 percent) of NYT subscribers have such extras as Cooking, Games and Wirecutter as part of their subscription, up from 43 percent in Q1 2024. ARPU (that’s “average revenue per user”) jumped 3.6 percent from the year-ago period. Even The Athletic, which had long been a money-loser, was $2.9M in the black. “Our strategy is working and our business is growing and demonstrating resilience amidst the current economic and geopolitical uncertainty,” said New York Times Company president and CEO Meredith Kopit Leven.
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One America News Network, a far-right, pro-Trump platform, will take over the job of providing newsfeed services to Voice of America and other US government-funded media outlets, according to US Agency for Global Media (parent agency to VOA) senior advisor Kari Lake. OAN’s services will be provided free of charge. This follows a move by USAGM to cancel contracts with wire services including Reuters, the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse. OAN, which is owned by San Diego-based Herring Networks, faced defamation lawsuits over its false claims that Trump won the 2020 presidential election. “What they have done, in effect, is replace our 83-year legacy of producing reliable, authoritative news with the hard work and commitment of countless journalists with a contract to outsource our news-gathering to a source that is clearly partisan,” said Voice of America White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara, who has been put on indefinite leave.
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| Gemma Fox |
TIME hires Gemma Fox, who was previously deputy US editor for the Times of London, as editorial director, news. At the Times of London, Fox oversaw coverage of the 2024 presidential election. She was previously deputy foreign editor at The Independent and worked at Sky News. In her new role she will oversee TIME's news team. “Gemma will lead coverage of major news events across the newsroom, working closely with subject matter teams and collaborating across departments—including audience, photography, art, and video—to bring the news to life across platforms,” said TIME editor in chief Sam Jacobs in a memo sent to staffers on May 8.
Symbolic.ai forms a partnership with News Corp to begin using the company’s AI-native publisher platform in the newsrooms of News Corp publications to augment research, writing and publishing... Mediaite launches a newsletter that promises to give readers a summary of—media newsletters... The Fund for American Studies launches the Journalism Excellence Fellowship, a program that will provide promising young journalists the opportunity to work alongside top writers, reporters, and media professionals.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which has roots going back to 1786, is going out of business, the paper’s owners, Block Communications, announced on Jan. 7... GQ editor Will Welch is stepping down to take on a new Paris-based role with the musician Pharrell, who is also men’s creative director at Louis Vuitton... Semafor says it has raised $30 million on a $330 million valuation, following its first profitable year. 
The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI reach an agreement that will make a set of more than 200 animated, masked and creature characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars available for use by Sora, OpenAI’s short-form generative AI video platform... CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss has moved Tony Dokoupil, a co-host at “CBS Mornings” since 2019, into the anchor’s chair for the “CBS Evening News,” following the departure of John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois... USA Today editor-in-chief Caren Bohan has left the paper.
Michael Kaminer, who was responsible for the Observer’s “Power List” for the past 13 years, has cut ties with the publication... The New York Times Company continues the march toward its goal of 15 million subscribers by the end of 2027... The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is providing more than $6 million in funding to eight organizations working to address the challenges local news and information environments face along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Conservative outlets Fox News, Newsmax and the Daily Caller are holding back from signing Pete Hegseth’s edict restricting press access in the Pentagon... CBS News sees the first executive departure of the Bari Weiss era as head of standards and practices Claudia Milne exits... Indiana University shuts down the print version of The Indiana Daily Student.
