preview

Case Analysis : New York Times Digital

Better Essays

The New York Times Company is a leading media company; its flagship paper, the New York Times is considered as its most valuable asset. News is a low outlay, frequently purchased good, with a value proposition of intangible or informational nature, and a high differentiation potential. The publishing industry, newspaper in particular, had adopted the "Chinese Wall" principle-- the separation of editorial operations and business operations as a gatekeeping function. The industry is cyclical: when the economy is depressed, advertising declines and publishers look to cut costs and personnel. New York Times derives majority of its revenues from advertising (65%). Other revenues primarily consist of circulation and revenues from wholesale …show more content…

They hired so many outsiders with Intemet experience that, by the end of 2000, only a quarter of the staff had come through intemal transfers. They altered planning norms and focused on different measures of performance. They moved to a separate building. And they made an effort to redefine their culture and values.

The NYTD employees were now operating under the assumption that they are serving a different set of readers and advertisers than the paper and meeting distinct needs. By 2001, NYTD has its own sales force. It has expanded the company's audience: only 15 percent overlap with newspaper readers; 85 percent of NYTD's audience is new to the company. NYTD has expanded the company's reach in key demographics: age and geographic reach. Also, NYTimes.com has a much stronger international audience than does the newspaper. NYTD has experimented with potential revenue streams and added a great deal of content that was not in the daily newspaper, including material from other news sources, continuous news breaks, audio and video content, interactive features, and archives.

However, the organizational restructuring that enabled NYTD to overcome the first challenge also hindered it from overcoming the second one. And being able to do this is crucial. NYTD needed two links in particular to the newspaper. It could not survive without the newspaper's branded content (its crucial competitive advantage), the main attraction for its readers. It gets more mileage

Get Access