Why has the New York Times Company dropped from $2 billion in annual ad revenue during the early 2000s to about $600 million today? According to Jeff Desjardins at Visual Capitalist:
- Physical circulation of The New York Times and other newspapers is dropping rapidly.
- Traditional display ads aren’t particularly effective, and are part of the “old-school” of digital thought.
- Programmatic bidding drives down prices for these ads, bringing in even less revenue.
- Digital lends itself to long-term, results-driven campaigns. It takes time to set these up and measure them properly, especially at scale.
- Ads need to match the editorial stream to be effective. Quality over quantity.
- There’s more competition in the digital space, which is a stark contrast to the distribution oligopolies enjoyed by big newspapers in the legacy era.
- Madison Avenue is also slow at switching to digital, which only adds to the lag time.
Full article: http://www.visualcapitalist.com/chart-new-york-times/