Sales 2023: $ 2.426 billion (€2.244 billion)

Overview

In addition to The New York Times, the publishing group also owns the Boston Globe, The International Herald Tribune, local newspapers, radio stations, and websites. The New York Times is the world's most influential liberal quality newspaper. It has been owned by the Ochs-Sulzberger family since the beginning of the 20th century.

An updated company profile will be published shortly.

General Information

Headquarters
620 Eight Avenue
New York, NY 10018
USA

Telephone: 001 212 556-1234
Internet: http://www.nytco.com

Branches of trade: national daily newspapers, local newspapers, radio stations, online offerings
Legal form: Stock Company
Financial year: 01.01.-31.12.
Founding year: 1851

Basic economic data (in US$ million)

	2023	2022	2021	2020	2019	2018
Revenue	2.426	2.308	2.075	1.784	1.812	1.749
Profit (net income)	232	174	220	100	140	126
Stock price (year end)	44,74	32,46	48,30	51,77	32,77	22,47
Employees	5.900	5.800	5.000	4.700	4.500	4.320

Executives and Directors

Executives

• Joseph Kahn, the executive editor
• Meredith Kopit Levien, President, CEO
• Jacqueline M. Welch, EVP and chief human resources officer
• Diane Brayton, EVP & general counsel
• AG Sulzberger, Chairman & Publisher
• Joy Robins, global chief advertising officer
• Carolyn Ryan, managing editor
• Marc Lacey, managing editor
• David Perpich, publisher of The Athletic
• David Rubin, chief brand and communications officer, publisher of Wirecutter
• Hannah Yang, chief growth and customer officer
• William Bardeen, EVP and CFO

Board of Directors

• AG Sulzberger, publisher and chairman
• Amanpal S. Bhutani
• Manuel Bronstein
• Beth Brooke
• Rachel Glaser
• Arthur Golden
• Hays N. Golden
• Meredith Kopit Levien
• Brian P. McAndrews
• David Perpich
• John W. Rogers, Jr.
• Anuradha B. Subramanian
• Rebecca Van Dyck

History and Profile

Despite his divided relationship with the press, Richard Nixon admitted one thing to the New York Times a few years after leaving the presidency: "Some read it and like it, some read it and don't like it, but everyone reads it." For over 150 years, "The Gray Lady," as she is affectionately called by her admirers, has held her own in the fiercely competitive US newspaper market and has since become one of the most cited quality newspapers in the world, even being ascribed the function of a political agenda-setter. Special supplements from the New York Times are included in the opinion-leading daily newspapers of many countries, for example, the "Süddeutsche Zeitung," "El Nacional" in Venezuela, and "Izvestia" in Russia. The ambitious dream of its founding fathers to overshadow the local New York tabloids has been surpassed in many ways: Today, their paper not only sets the pace of the global zeitgeist, but is as much a part of the New Yorker lifestyle as baseball caps are to the Yankees.

The New York Times, often simply called "The Times" and not to be confused with the London-based "The Times," was founded on September 18, 1851, by journalist and politician Henry Jarvis Raymond and former financier George Jones under the name "New-York Daily Times." Six years later, it was renamed "The New York Times." The "Times" became known to a wider readership in the 1860s under its then editor-in-chief, the prolific and controversial John Swinton (1829-1901). The actual birth, however, must be dated to the day on August 19, 1896, when Adolph Simon Ochs (1858-1935), the son of German-Jewish immigrants and publisher of the "Chattanooga Times" from Chattanooga, Tennessee, bought the paper, which was on the verge of bankruptcy, for 75,000 US dollars and developed it into the most influential US quality newspaper. His intention was to establish a serious alternative to the dominant yellow press of the time, especially the sensationalist "New York World" under the direction of Joseph Pulitzer and the "New York Journal American" of media mogul William Randolph Hearst. Ochs achieved this noble goal by committing himself to objective news journalism at a time when the majority of the press was highly partisan, and by successfully asserting himself against the competition through clever pricing policies (he reduced the price per issue from three to one cent).

Adolph Ochs, father of Arthur Ochs "Punch" Sulzberger and great-grandfather of Arthur Ochs-Sulzberger Jr. (publisher of The Times since 1992), had already proven himself a clever editor in his youth, borrowing 250 $ at the age of 19 to purchase shares in The Chattanooga Times, of which he later became publisher. At the age of 38, he took over The Times, an ailing, loss-making paper that was given little chance: With a paid circulation of 9,000 copies, it ranked last among the other 12 daily newspapers in New York. And so the industry was quite surprised when the new publisher's first editorial innovations were the abolition of comics and colorful stories. Instead, Ochs concentrated on the bread and butter of journalism: news, news, news, which he served to his readers in a dry style and sober presentation – a groundbreaking success model, as it later turned out. By the time the Spanish-American War began two years later, Ochs had almost tripled his circulation. While more powerful competitors like the "Morning Journal" and "The World" were sending correspondents to the battlefields to provide America with front-line news, Ochs decided to take radical action and reduce the price of his newspaper by two-thirds, an unimaginable amount for the industry – and once again demonstrated his foresight: circulation tripled again within a year, and more and more companies began placing advertisements.

Ochs had shown everyone, especially his competitors. However, the publishing stunt had affected him more than his contemporaries suspected. After all, the plan could have backfired. One radical measure was followed immediately by another: Ochs invested – without regard for the interests of the Times' shareholders, who had received only meager dividends in the first two decades of the 20th century. He focused on the sustainable expansion of the editorial apparatus, installed a multi-faceted network of correspondents worldwide, bought new printing presses, and in 1904 moved into newly built headquarters in Longacre Square – which, at Ochs's urging, was publicly renamed Times Square by the mayor of New York City.

As early as 1927, Ochs transferred control of the flagship newspaper to his son-in-law, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, who also assumed the position of publishing director when Ochs died in 1935. At that time, The Times already had a weekday circulation of 465,000 copies, and 745,000 on Sundays. By the time Sulzberger left in 1961, it had grown to 713,000, and the Sunday edition even reached 1.4 million. Since then, the publishing house has been expanding, and not only in terms of circulation. Although economic crises such as the Depression in the late 1920s and a downturn in the early 1970s dampened advertising revenue, these disruptions had a negligible impact on circulation. The New York Times Company ventured into the magazine market in 1969 by purchasing Golf Digest magazine, and just two years later acquired its first television station: WREG-TV in Memphis. Since the 1960s, however, the Times has primarily made a name for itself as a journalist, primarily due to its enlightening editorial line. The demand for liberal reporting grew immensely due to the conflict-laden social atmosphere during the anti-Vietnam War movement, and the Times became a celebrated model for investigative journalism. In 1971, it published excerpts from the so-called Pentagon Papers, a 7,000-page secret report that revealed the Defense Department's strategies regarding the Vietnam War. The Times also took a public stance in the wake of the media and political uproar surrounding the infamous Watergate scandal, although it did not play a major role in uncovering it.
The publisher's most valuable asset to this day is undoubtedly the printed "Times." According to Sulzberger Jr., the paper defines itself as "urban." This liberally understood slogan conceals much. The newspaper's reputation as an enlightener has indeed made it a global opinion leader: scandals and turning points in contemporary history, such as the conflict between the USA and the Soviet Union in the Bay of Pigs in Cuba in 1961 or war crimes in Vietnam, were uncovered by "Times" reporters. However, as Stefan Elfenbein explains in the standard work "Power and Myth of a Medium" (1996), appearances could be deceptive: The newspaper's political stance has always been determined by self-interest, he claims. Accordingly, the newspaper's political content was and is solely aimed at maintaining the power of the "Times" as a leading press publication with a decision-making function in elite circles such as the Washington power center. Depending on whether a government strengthens or threatens this position, the reporting takes a more liberal or conservative stance. This is said to have also led to the initial wait-and-see attitude in dealing with clues about the Watergate scandal, which was ultimately revealed by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post.

Despite this highly questionable editorial practice, "The New York Times" brand is recognized in the public eye for exceptional journalistic quality. With 95 Pulitzer Prizes, the paper, which gave its name to Times Square more than 100 years ago, is the most decorated publication in the United States: In 2002 alone, a record seven Pulitzers went to the editorial team, primarily for its coverage of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and their aftermath. However, its good reputation makes the Times all the more vulnerable in terms of media policy: the work of the editors and reporters who write for the print edition and the online offshoot is monitored by a number of critical watch blogs - as in the case of Jayson Blair: The young editor had already had an unprecedented rise at the Times when it was revealed in April 2003 that among the 600 articles he had written in his four years as a reporter there were obvious forgeries that he had either invented or copied from elsewhere.

This made initial steps toward regaining credibility all the more necessary. The editorial staff felt compelled to publicly address its own misdeeds. The detailed investigation into the Blair case by a five-person research team, which was granted unrestricted insight into the publishing and editorial processes, demonstrates the extent to which the previously highly respected newspaper felt obliged to examine itself in order to regain its reputation, which it had thought was lost. The expansion of internal controls points to numerous risk factors and shortcomings, even in newspaper operations in general. For example, the Times' self-criticism of its own reporting on the Iraq War was only superficially an admission of weakness: its courageous handling of its own mistakes demanded recognition from other media outlets. Following the principle of collective responsibility, the paper at least avoided publicly blaming individual members of the editorial staff.

Specifically, a number of groundbreaking changes to the content structure were made after the Blair scandal: The corrections section was strengthened and more clearly divided into minor corrections ("For the record") and significant corrections ("Corrections"). A typographical adjustment to the news pages was also introduced to make it easier for readers to distinguish between informative texts and opinion pieces. The internal changes were more extensive: Since then, every single editorial staff member has been subjected to regular performance reviews in order to be able to intervene more quickly should conflicts with the code of ethics, which came into force in 2005, arise. In addition, an automated "error database" has been created to better track the dissemination of irregularities through the individual editorial departments and prevent recurrence. Together with a new author guideline to clearly identify the editorial staff and an appointment guideline that should leave no doubt as to which reporter is where and when, the net of control is tightened around the staff. The Times' Public Editor, Clark Hoyt (since 2007), also serves as an ombudsman, responding to reader inquiries and ensuring their voices are heard within the newspaper. Hoyt is the newspaper's third ombudsman, following Daniel Okrent (2003-2005) and Byron E. Calame (2005-2007).

management

Although the company has been publicly listed since 1967, its management is (still) in strong family hands. Since Adolph Ochs expanded his portfolio with the "Times" in 1896, the newspaper has been controlled by the Ochs-Sulzbergers. Chairman Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., in office since 1997, sees himself, not without reason, in the direct tradition of the success story of his paternal predecessors, as it was always the company's ties to family ties that enabled freedom of decision and economic maneuverability. This was also reflected in Sulzberger's collaboration with former CEO Russell Lewis, who had already been a close confidant of his father, Arthur Ochs "Punch" Sulzberger. Nevertheless, Sulzberger Jr. wanted to embark on new, independent successes. At the end of 2004, he promoted Janet Robinson to the position of CEO following Lewis's retirement after just ten months as Vice President of the publishing house. Since then, she has overseen all operational affairs of the company. The former teacher at two public schools in New England benefits from her eight years of close involvement in the development of the newspaper division within the publishing house's management team, and especially with The Times itself. In 2006, Forbes magazine ranked her 74th among the most powerful women in the world. Together with Sulzberger's deputy CEO, Michael Golden, who came to Manhattan not coincidentally from Ochs's former hometown paper, the Chattanooga Times, the publishing triumvirate is working diligently to further modernize the quality journalistic authority.
Scott Heekin-Canedy, President and General Manager of the Times, is also a key figure. The lawyer, who holds a doctorate in law, is tasked with implementing the publishing management's ambitious plans pragmatically. Since taking office almost eleven years ago, Sulzberger has strived for circulation increases in the five-digit range. However, the media crisis following September 11 made a daily increase of 250,000 copies sold impossible. Nevertheless, management can claim that circulation has at least remained stable throughout the entire period and has not collapsed like other quality newspapers, such as the Los Angeles Times or the Dallas Morning News. At the same time, the subsequent expansion of the online business and television activities has given the publisher a broader base, ultimately allowing it to refocus on its core business through the recent sale of its TV stakes. The goal here is to combine publishing power in the traditional print and online sectors. The Times' increased appeal through regular front-page stories in four-color printing was followed by a blog initiative that is unparalleled: over 50 of these professional online diaries, written by journalists and other experienced journalists, deal with topics such as television, football and fast food, with a special focus on sports and opinions.

The expansion, both real and virtual, continues. Furthermore, the number of printing locations has doubled over the past decade, led by a prestigious architectural project, the approximately 50,000 square meter printing plant in the New York City borough of Queens. Purchase options have also expanded: The "Times" is available not only at almost every newsstand in the USA, as well as in Starbucks cafés and 7/11 supermarkets, but since 2001 also worldwide as an ePaper via the provider "Newsstand.com." Previously, the printed edition was available internationally at a select few locations – and was always several days out of date.

The management of the publishing house, controlled by the founding family, is increasingly under pressure from shareholders to halt the steady decline in sales and earnings and to increase shareholder value; the share price fell by 15 percent in 2006, and advertising revenues and circulation figures for the newspapers, as well as the publisher's sales, were more or less significantly below the previous year's results.

The main problem at the moment is that the Ochs-Sulzbergers have to defend their majority shareholding against the efforts of the relentless London fund manager Hassan Elmasry – and with him against the investment bank Morgan Stanley – as the latter is trying to force the family into a radical austerity program. So far, the clan has only been able to protect its ownership because it owns the voting shares, while banks and investment funds own the non-voting shares. Thus, the Ochs-Sulzberger family controls the entire company with just 19 percent of the shares. However, if Elmasry ever succeeds in breaking this two-class structure, the banks would definitively gain control of the family publishing house. In the wake of Murdoch's takeover of the "Wall Street Journal" in 2007, there was also speculation about a sale of the "Times," thus spelling the definitive end to the tradition of family publishing structures in the USA.

Business segments

newspapers
The Times is one of the world's most recognized newspaper brands and thus an important advertising partner, especially for globally operating companies. In January 2008, a full-page color ad cost up to $260,000. While this isn't a record—the Wall Street Journal charges a maximum of $309,000 per color ad page—the Times is among the top advertisers internationally: At the beginning of 2008, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung charged just under €96,000 for a color page, and the Guardian charged £18,000. Nevertheless, the New York Times Company has long since ceased to rely solely on its flagship publication: The publisher's name is misleading in that, in addition to The Times, it publishes 18 other daily newspapers, including the national quality papers the Boston Globe and the International Health Tribune. The largest acquisition was the 1993 purchase of the Boston Globe for $1.1 billion. Today, the Globe, the university city of Boston's most important quality newspaper, is managed as a separate division together with the Worcester Telegram & Gazette (2006 circulation: 106,000), acquired in January 2000, forming the New England Media Group. All other 15 local and regional newspapers are bundled in the Regional Media Group. Most are located in the southern United States – four in Florida (“The Gainesville Sun”, circulation 2006: 47,600; “The Ledger”: 69,800; “Sarasota Herald-Tribune”: 108,000; “Star Banner”: 49,100), three each in Alabama (“Times Daily”: 29,900; “The Gadsen Times”: 20,700; “The Tuscaloosa News”: 33,600) and North Carolina (“The Dispatch”: 11,000; “Times-News”: 18,500; “The Star News”: 51,000), two in Louisiana (“The Courier”: 18,600; “The Daily Comet”: 10,700) and one in South Carolina (“Spartanburg Herald Journal”: 46,200). The remaining two papers are distributed in California (“The Press Democrat”: 83,000; “Petaluma Argus-Courier”: 7,400, published weekly).

The most important division, however, remains the New York Times Media Group, which, in addition to its parent paper of the same name, also includes the "International Herald Tribune," which is available abroad. For many years, the "Tribune" was published jointly with the "Washington Post." In 2003, the new man in charge of the publishing group, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., ended this joint venture: He offered the publishers of the "Washington Post" a purchase price for their shares – threatening that if they refused, he would launch a new US foreign newspaper on his own as a competing product. The "Washington Post" finally reluctantly agreed to a buyout for 65 million US dollars.

The Broadcast Media Group (2006 revenues: $139 million, profit: $33 million), which the New York Times Co. built over 35 years and sold to the Californian private equity firm Oak Hill Capital Partners LP for $575 million in early 2007, comprised nine local television stations with a total of 900 employees. Four of these stations were partnered with the CBS network, two each with ABC and NBC, and one with MyNetworkTV, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. The company was one of the first newspaper publishers in the U.S. to invest in electronic media in the 1970s, acquiring its Memphis TV station as early as 1971. Sulzberger and Robinson stated in a press release that the company's future strategy must be entirely focused on print media and the growing internet business, as well as the synergies between the two areas.

Online offers
The economic problems, a share price that has fallen by about half in two years and the slump in advertising business, are to be offset by increased involvement in the Internet. In mid-2006, the New York Times Company acquired the business-to-business database for $35 million. Baseline StudioSystemsThe company aims to diversify by acquiring information about the film and television industry. A year earlier, in February 2005, the group had already acquired the internet-based advice portal for $410 million. About.com , which, according to the company, made it the twelfth largest internet player in the world. This development also fits in with the consistent entry into Automattic, a software company, in January 2008. About.com operates on the WordPress blog publishing platform, whose development is being led and further expanded by Automattic. Although the publisher is making the smallest investment contribution, it hopes to achieve advances in blog technology that will make its own offerings more attractive.

On September 19, 2007, almost exactly two years after the launch of the TimesSelect payment service, the Times passed this payment hurdle on its website  again. Previously, a subscription fee of $49.95 per year or $7.95 per month was required to use this service. Publisher spokespeople justified the opening of almost the entire archive—all articles from the paper's 92 years of archives and all columns by the distinguished writers—by arguing that their forecasts regarding the growth of the online advertising market were incorrect. In particular, they had not expected the number of readers accessing "Times" articles via search engines like Google or Yahoo to increase so dramatically. The almost complete elimination of paid content is intended to generate more traffic and thus, consequently, more revenue from online advertising.

Current developments

To date, the editorial office has had to relocate several times within Manhattan, until mid-2007, when it moved into a new building just a few blocks from Times Square. Publisher Sulzberger Jr. is implementing a new editorial and communications structure, which seemed overdue in light of recent crises and also responds to increasing pressure from shareholders.
The Times is also making a fresh start on paper. For economic reasons, the newspaper format was narrowed by almost 3.8 centimeters in width in August 2007, resulting in an 11 percent reduction in editorial space despite a slight increase in the number of pages. At the same time, printing in the New York metropolitan area will be concentrated at the printing facility in the borough of Queens; a second printing facility in Edison, New Jersey, will be leased. The concentration on just one printing facility is expected to result in the elimination of 250 of a total of 800 full-time positions in production. CEO Janet L. Robinson justified the change with recent studies that have shown that younger commuters and readers in particular prefer the smaller format. The New York Times Company expects savings of around 42 million dollars as a result, 30 million dollars of which will be attributable to lower costs and 12 million dollars to the smaller format because less paper is used. A new spatial concept is intended to ensure that journalistic quality is not compromised by the smaller 12-inch format, which is also used for publications like "USA Today" and the "Wall Street Journal." "Communication staircases" are intended to facilitate exchange between the different editorial departments and connect hierarchical levels, thus preventing loneliness and cronyism. Furthermore, the print editorial departments will be more closely interwoven with those of the online publication, and editorial and publishing directors will be more spatially integrated into the journalistic process, so that they no longer overlook their staff.

literature

Diamond, Edwin (1995): Behind the Times: Inside the New New York Times. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Elfenbein, Stefan W. (1996): The New York Times: Power and Myth of a Medium. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer.

Kramp, Leif (2008): New York Times. In: Hachmeister, Lutz (ed.): Fundamentals of Media Policy. Munich: DVA.

Mnookin, Seth (2004): Hard News: Twenty-one Brutal Months at The New York Times and How They Changed the American Media. New York: Random House.

Talese, Gay (2007): The Kingdom and the Power: Behind the Scenes at The New York Times: The Institution That Influences the World, New York: Random House.

Tifft, Susan E./ Jones, Alex S. (1999): The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times. Boston [et al.]: Little, Brown and Company.

Author(s): Leif Kramp & Stephan Weichert (responsible)