Much of the U.S. newspaper industry has been left for dead amid the explosion of online news – and for good reason.
But the biggest two papers are alive and well – The New York Times (NYSE:NYT) and The Wall Street Journal, which is part of Murdoch-controlled News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWSA).
New York Times stock has outgained The S&P 500 index 9.8% to 8.5% so far this year. News Corp. isn’t too far behind at 7.7%. And The Wall Street Journal is actually performing better than the rest the News Corp. company.
The Journal is part of Dow Jones, which also includes Barron’s and MarketWatch. Dow Jones accounts for only 28% of News Corp. revenue. The parent company also owns the New York Post and media outlets in the U.K. and Australia.
So what explains the success of The Journal and The Times? First. there’s quality. The papers attract the best reporters and editors in the country. Second, there’s politics. Liberals appreciate The Times for its left-wing editorial page, and conservatives like The Journal for its right-wing editorial page. Still, both papers have objective news coverage, though perhaps a bit less so at The Times.
Publications of record
The Journal is the publication of record for business news, and The Times matches that for foreign and cultural coverage. Both are taking advantage of opportunities online. In particular, The Times has benefited from digital offerings for cooking recipes, consumer product reviews (Wirecutter) and word games.
The company’s revenue climbed 10% In the second quarter from a year earlier, to $685.9 million. Profit soared 27% $82.9 million. The Times added 230,000 digital-only subscribers in the second quarter from the first, putting the total at 11.3 million. Adding print subscriptions for the paper, the number rises to 11.9 million.
Advertising revenue gained 12.4% from a year earlier, including an 18.7% jump for digital ad revenue.
Not as much specific information is available for The Journal, because it’s only one property in one division of News Corp. But the data that are available are strong.
The good news
Total subscriptions to the paper rose 7% in the quarter ended June 30 from a year earlier, to 4.5 million. Digital only subscriptions ascended 9% to 4.1 million. Revenue for the Dow Jones group, which includes The Journal, increased 7% to $604 million.
One interesting takeaway from these numbers is that The Times’ subscription base is more than twice as high as The Journal’s. One reason why is that 32% of Times digital-only subscribers, or 3.5 million as of 2024, didn’t receive the news product. Subtracting that from The Times total subscribership leaves 8.4 million. Of course that’s still way above The Journal’s total.
The biggest reason for The Times’ higher number is that it’s a general newspaper, while The Journal still focuses primarily on business, though its scope of coverage has widened considerably over the last 30 years.
In any case, the outlook looks sunny for both The Times and The Journal going forward. They essentially have a monopoly over mainstream, national print news. And the barrier to entry for knocking them off their perch appears quite high. Creating a national news publication isn’t easy.
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