How the NYT makes subs and ads work together

Brian: 00:00:09

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Welcome to the Rebooting Show.

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we have a series of good conversations coming up as we close out the year.

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I think we can say close out the year.

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It's already, it's only like six weeks out.

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Later this week, I'll have a conversation that I held, as part of A TRB Live

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last week with, Luke Bradley Jones, Luke's the President of the Economist.

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one thing that stood out to me during that interview was that the Economist did a project

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I think a lot of people should be doing that exercise.

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I also have conversations coming up with Isaac Saul, the CEO of Tangle,

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which is a really fascinating.

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independent news publisher that seeks to give both sides to very fraught political issues.

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I have another one with Josh Schnapps of Schnapps Media about how you make local news, a sustainable

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bunch of other good conversations coming up.

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Always like to hear your feedback.

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my email is brian@therebooting.com.

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On this week's episode, I spoke to Joy Robbins.

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Joy is the chief advertising officer at the New York Times.

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The Times has been something of a star pupil of the class.

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Making a decisive move to focus on reader revenue.

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at a time when most news publishers were still focused on traffic, it has built a formidable

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business that aspires really to be more like Netflix for liberals than a newspaper.

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Joy and I discuss how the focus on subscriptions has turned out to be a benefit to its ad business.

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Why, the times bundle of lifestyle products is critical to offering news

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wary advertisers, attractive alternatives.

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And whether, display advertising has been a complete failure, as I pause it.

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and finally why the watch tab, in the New York Times app is so critical that

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it is holding off on fully monetizing it.

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Hope you enjoy this conversation with Joy.

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I.

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Joy, thanks for joining me on the podcast.

Brian: 00:03:11

I think we lasted it in person several years ago.

Joy: 00:03:14

Back when in person was the thing to do.

Brian: 00:03:17

I wanna go back to it.

Brian: 00:03:18

I wanna go.

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We should do it in person again.

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there's, there's advantages to both.

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let's get started.

Brian: 00:03:22

I mean, the New York Times, you, you guys are the sort of envy of a lot of publishers.

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You know, when I, when I talk with them, I was talking with one publisher

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a couple weeks ago who was, who has like a very subscriptions heavy model.

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And this, this person who's the CRO, there was like, it's so much better.

Brian: 00:03:41

It's so much better.

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so the New York Times is, you know, subscriptions first, and you know, the, the

Brian: 00:03:48

mission is described as to become the essential subscription for every curious person seeking

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to understand and engage with the world.

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it has been very successful at, at getting some 11 million people to, to become paying subscribers.

Joy: 00:04:03

it's over 12 now.

Brian: 00:04:05

Oh, is it over 12?

Brian: 00:04:05

Sorry.

Brian: 00:04:06

so talk to me about the role that advertising plays.

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'cause I can remember, you know, it's a shift that takes place when you start to focus

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on subscriptions and the initial feeling.

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A lot of times it used to be that this, that these things are counter to each other.

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If you're going to.

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You're gonna put friction up, to get people to pay.

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You're gonna have a smaller audience.

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And a smaller audience means a smaller advertising business.

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on the other hand, when you have a subscription business, you, the

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quality of your audience is higher.

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And we saw that in the traffic era.

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A lot of people had a fairly flimsy audience, that they got from, from various, platforms.

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and you have a lot more data.

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So tell me about how, and you guys, the, the advertising business is, is growing.

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Right.

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It's back to, to growing.

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So tell me about how subscription or how advertising fits in with a subscription

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focused model and why they don't.

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These two things don't work against each other.

Joy: 00:05:02

Sure.

Joy: 00:05:02

I think it's a great question and a great place to start.

Joy: 00:05:05

I think first and foremost, I'd say advertising is an essential part of the New York Times' business.

Joy: 00:05:12

and thing about a subscriptions first business and even a business that is both.

Joy: 00:05:19

Subscriptions and advertising.

Joy: 00:05:20

Both of those things happen downstream from audience engagement, right?

Joy: 00:05:25

So the thing that we have to make sure we are doing as a company is creating journalism

Joy: 00:05:31

and product so good that people seek them out by name, create direct relationships,

Joy: 00:05:38

and ultimately pay for that experience.

Joy: 00:05:40

But through that, we are really focused on building engaged relationships with our audiences.

Joy: 00:05:48

That means a much stronger ad business.

Joy: 00:05:51

for all of the reasons that you just listed.

Joy: 00:05:54

We have a lot more signal, we have, relationships and frequency with these readers.

Joy: 00:06:00

but I'd also say it makes us relentlessly focused on our product, our user experience,

Joy: 00:06:08

and the excellence that both of those represent.

Joy: 00:06:10

And that's really important to marketers too.

Joy: 00:06:12

They wanna be.

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Where, you know, user experiences and trust is really high.

Joy: 00:06:18

So I think that everything it requires to build a subscription first business ultimately

Joy: 00:06:25

is in service of a stronger ad business.

Joy: 00:06:28

And that's not to say that there aren't.

Joy: 00:06:30

I mean, I think, I believe that you can have a strong subscription

Joy: 00:06:35

business and a strong ad business.

Joy: 00:06:38

There are not, not trade-offs.

Joy: 00:06:40

Right.

Joy: 00:06:40

And I think that knowing that, you know, there is friction that needs to be in place, in appropriate

Joy: 00:06:48

places, you know, is, is, is just part of that.

Joy: 00:06:51

But I will also say the audience of the New York Times is bigger than it's ever been.

Joy: 00:06:56

you know, 50 to a hundred million people are coming to us every single week.

Joy: 00:07:00

And so that's also, so we, we obviously have a very strong ad business given

Joy: 00:07:04

all of the engagement that we have.

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From our subscribers and our registered users.

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but also we are producing journalism and products that tens of millions of people are coming

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to every single day, and that matters too.

Brian: 00:07:17

Yeah, and so you're, the ad business is still based on scale.

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To some degree, I mean in that like you have scaled audiences like, I mean,

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there's a lot of publishers who have seen their headline audience number.

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Shrink like quite a bit, you know, for some of them, I mean, because they're

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incredibly reliant on, for instance, Google traffic, which has become, a lot

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less reliable in many, in many areas.

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And so they've seen just, you know, their audiences go down by 30, 40%.

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you guys don't have that.

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that dynamic.

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And so I'm wondering like, but you're able to go to the market and say, not only is

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this a premium environment, not only do we have a lot more data on, on, on these people,

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but we're kind of like a scaled option.

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So I, I feel like the New York Times is, is the exception to a lot of rules to be honest with

Joy: 00:08:14

It's funny, I've been listening.

Joy: 00:08:16

I've been listening to you know, your last few episodes, and I think.

Joy: 00:08:20

You've talked about scale, not necessarily being as important, and I think the New York Times has

Joy: 00:08:27

the benefit of being able to play in both worlds.

Joy: 00:08:29

you know, we've spent the better part of a decade deeply investing and making sure

Joy: 00:08:34

we have direct relationships so people are coming directly to our products.

Joy: 00:08:39

At the same time.

Joy: 00:08:39

So yes, we are able to reach massive scale, whether it be through our homepage, which

Joy: 00:08:46

is one of the most premium products I'd say that we have to offer advertisers,

Joy: 00:08:51

or, you know, a games takeover where you can reach, again, tens of millions.

Joy: 00:08:55

So, so we can achieve scale pretty quickly.

Joy: 00:08:58

but, and we can also target pretty specifically, so our.

Joy: 00:09:04

First party data allows us to get into really segmented audiences where if you

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don't want, if an advertiser isn't looking for mass reach, but they're looking for

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really specific audiences in business or in style or, it, or its sports enthusiasts,

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we can target pretty, precisely as well.

Joy: 00:09:24

So it does give us that best of both worlds, opportunity for, for marketers.

Brian: 00:09:30

Yeah, and I think one of the, the hallmarks of the New York Times strategy

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has been going beyond news like so for.

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For many years, like I probably going back like a long time and people have been complaining about

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like the screenshot industrial complex forever.

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It was like, oh, we saw this ad next to some horrible news event and.

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Someone's like, how did this happen?

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as if there's, there's worse things out there in the world.

Brian: 00:09:58

but like the New York Times has diversified quite a bit from just the core news product.

Brian: 00:10:02

Okay?

Brian: 00:10:02

The core news product is still the core, right?

Brian: 00:10:05

But you've got games, you've got cooking, you've got wire cutter, you've got the

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athletic, you've got different surfaces, right?

Brian: 00:10:13

How important is that in the ad business?

Brian: 00:10:15

I don't suppose you're, you're gonna tell me how you break, how you break it out, but I'm sure

Brian: 00:10:20

that there is a percentage of your ad business that is not going to the core news product.

Brian: 00:10:26

And just to be clear, I mean the core news report, which is, you know, is, includes Gaza.

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I don't mean fashion, I don't mean tea style, nothing against them.

Brian: 00:10:37

I think they're wonderful.

Brian: 00:10:39

But like, you know what I mean?

Brian: 00:10:40

Like there, there's always been this idea that advertising is not, doesn't mix well with news.

Joy: 00:10:49

Has that always been the idea though, Brian?

Joy: 00:10:51

Like would you say that it has been a long standing, or do you feel as

Joy: 00:10:55

though that has become something that's been more of the narrative in the last

Brian: 00:11:01

Well, I mean, I, you know, since we're, we're all conspiracy curious these days,

Brian: 00:11:06

like, I think that, you know, as, as the brand safety, companies have gotten larger,

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the conversation around brand safety has.

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Surprisingly gotten bigger and how brand safety has been applied has perhaps not

Brian: 00:11:21

been as finely tuned as it should be.

Joy: 00:11:25

well look, we could have an entire episode if we could have an.

Brian: 00:11:28

it.

Joy: 00:11:29

entire episode, I think, debating that and, and un undercover and maybe we should one day.

Joy: 00:11:34

but look, I think, you know, the dynamic between news and our lifestyle products

Joy: 00:11:39

that you described is like core to the essential subscription strategy that we

Joy: 00:11:44

launched, you know, four, four years ago.

Joy: 00:11:46

You know, we wanna be the best news destination in the world.

Joy: 00:11:50

We wanna.

Joy: 00:11:50

Build market life's market leading lifestyle products that help people make the most of

Joy: 00:11:56

their lives and their passions, and we wanna create a more expansive and connected product

Joy: 00:12:01

experience to get both of those together so people can really experience the totality

Joy: 00:12:06

of what the New York Times has to offer in terms of what that means for the ad market.

Joy: 00:12:12

Look, I think news is incredibly important to the Times because I think it really helps.

Joy: 00:12:20

Our brand and reputation, and it is why marketers have been so excited to work with New York Times

Joy: 00:12:25

Cooking and Wirecutter and New York Times games, and even the Athletic, because while those are

Joy: 00:12:31

in very big spaces with broad marketer appeal.

Joy: 00:12:34

It is also because they come from the New York Times.

Joy: 00:12:37

So that credibility of the New York Times extends itself into our lifestyle products that

Joy: 00:12:42

are, yes, helping us attract more advertisers than we would have with just news alone.

Joy: 00:12:48

And I know that, you know, you're saying news should only have credit

Joy: 00:12:53

for, you know, politics or war.

Joy: 00:12:57

Some of the things that advertisers are more skittish to be around, but I'd actually really.

Joy: 00:13:03

Argue with that because I think that it is why advertisers have written off news as a via, as

Joy: 00:13:11

a, as a place for them to be because they don't appreciate how broadly defined news actually is.

Joy: 00:13:17

And so there are plenty of advertisers that we work with who want to stay away

Joy: 00:13:24

from politics and war, but do find the real value of the readers who are coming in for.

Joy: 00:13:31

Style or culture or you know, science backed health and wellness content or

Joy: 00:13:36

our technology and business coverage.

Joy: 00:13:39

So, I mean, I think that the lifestyle products have helped us create new funnels for new

Joy: 00:13:47

kinds of advertisers who may have never thought about the New York Times as a place they'd

Joy: 00:13:53

want to put their brand in the same way, our lifestyle products has also helped us.

Joy: 00:14:00

Increase our total addressable market for subscribers.

Joy: 00:14:03

So you know, it's helping us bring on new types of advertisers, and in some cases

Joy: 00:14:09

we can bring those advertisers in through something like wire cutter or cooking, who

Joy: 00:14:14

would not have thought about ever wanting to be in news, and those advertisers are then.

Joy: 00:14:19

running in some of our, you know, business or technology or culture

Joy: 00:14:23

coverage and seeing real improvements and increases in their overall performance.

Joy: 00:14:28

So it's like it gives us new entry points, for how brands can work with us rather than,

Joy: 00:14:35

I think what had traditionally been the really finite set when categories of advertisers that

Joy: 00:14:41

just are thought of as being, relevant to news.

Brian: 00:14:44

So what categories then are, are being opened up?

Brian: 00:14:47

Because I mean, last, not this just recent quarter, but the previous quarter had,

Brian: 00:14:51

had attributed the rise in, I think there was 18.7% increase, in ad revenue from new

Brian: 00:14:59

advertising supply in areas of strong marketer.

Brian: 00:15:02

Demand was, was how it was put.

Brian: 00:15:04

What are those?

Joy: 00:15:05

Yep.

Joy: 00:15:06

Yeah, I mean I think there's two things in that because I do think it's worth saying that we

Joy: 00:15:13

have all of these lifestyle products that up until, you know, for the athletic, two and a

Joy: 00:15:18

half years ago for games just about two years ago for Wirecutter, just they didn't have any ads.

Joy: 00:15:24

so we've opened up ad supply and ad opportunities and that has helped us grow and.

Joy: 00:15:31

We have also been able to mature some of these new lifestyle products to be more relevant to

Joy: 00:15:37

the advertisers in those specific categories.

Joy: 00:15:41

So there are sports budgets that some advertisers have that are completely

Joy: 00:15:46

separate from budgets that, You know, we would have had access into in the past.

Joy: 00:15:51

so now we actually have an opportunity to take more share because we have more relevant

Joy: 00:15:55

passion points that fulfill where advertisers are looking to, to show up more cultural

Joy: 00:16:01

relevance, because that's a thing that we're hearing a lot from marketers, that they

Joy: 00:16:04

want to be in the cultural conversation.

Joy: 00:16:07

They want to be around cultural moments.

Joy: 00:16:10

And because of the way that we now have this really.

Joy: 00:16:14

Robust portfolio, were more relevant for those moments than ever.

Joy: 00:16:18

So it's allowed us to go into categories that were maybe more consumer led that may have not

Joy: 00:16:24

spent in the traditional news sector before.

Joy: 00:16:28

But now, you know, through cooking and through wire cutter and through, again, sports and games

Joy: 00:16:35

were a lot more, attractive and opportunistic for, for some of those CPG or retail based clients.

Brian: 00:16:42

Okay.

Brian: 00:16:43

And is this like, is the growth mostly in like brand focus advertising?

Brian: 00:16:46

I know obviously there's like bleeding into it, but I think the big question for publishers

Brian: 00:16:52

is so much of the market has shifted to performance, and I don't like the, the, the

Brian: 00:16:58

platforms have built better mouse traps.

Brian: 00:17:00

They have, they have better data.

Brian: 00:17:02

They have, you know, they have massive, customer bases.

Brian: 00:17:07

I mean, they, Or user bases.

Brian: 00:17:09

And they have massive customer bases, like they're made for direct marketing.

Brian: 00:17:13

I wrote about direct marketing.

Brian: 00:17:14

They, they call it performance, but it's direct marketing.

Brian: 00:17:17

They're made for that stuff.

Brian: 00:17:19

really difficult for publishers to compete head to head on on that kind of performance when it

Brian: 00:17:27

comes to just feeding money into the platforms.

Brian: 00:17:31

So what is the pitch to advertisers?

Brian: 00:17:35

About why to spend on in the New York Times environment from a performance standpoint,

Brian: 00:17:41

or do you just focus mostly on advertisers that want to be part of, you know, a softer

Brian: 00:17:47

kind of be part of a cultural conversation and, and that part of advertising, which is,

Brian: 00:17:52

don't get me wrong, is incredibly important.

Brian: 00:17:54

And I think that maybe brands are waking up to the fact that like not everything can

Brian: 00:17:59

be performance and there's a limit to that.

Brian: 00:18:02

I mean, believe it or not, it's like weird.

Brian: 00:18:04

but like, how do you, how do you think about that?

Brian: 00:18:08

Like, I mean, because I, I assume that like, again, the New York Times is unique

Brian: 00:18:12

in that, I don't think it ha it can, it can compete on, on, on a lot of different levels

Brian: 00:18:16

that where a lot of publishers simply can.

Brian: 00:18:19

But do you try to compete on performance as well as brand?

Joy: 00:18:23

I mean, the first thing I'll say is I believe there's a lot of headroom in the brand space.

Joy: 00:18:28

You know, we've been able to, Grow pretty significantly in our digital

Joy: 00:18:33

ad businesses year without video.

Joy: 00:18:35

So I would say, you know, and as we build, and I know we'll probably talk about that, but as

Joy: 00:18:39

we build more and more video like experiences, there's a lot of headroom in, in the brand space.

Joy: 00:18:44

I would also agree with you to say the times is audience and our depth and our ability

Joy: 00:18:50

to target does put us in a category of one.

Joy: 00:18:54

in terms of yes, we can do all of the things that.

Joy: 00:18:58

Are the best parts of working with trusted premium publishers when it comes to brand.

Joy: 00:19:04

And we also have an opportunity to be able to more granularly target.

Joy: 00:19:10

We have a shopping platform that is wire cutter that drove a billion

Joy: 00:19:15

dollars in commerce last year.

Joy: 00:19:17

So, you know, we have an opportunity to be both in a way that I don't think.

Joy: 00:19:24

Many other media companies can accomplish.

Joy: 00:19:28

You know, I think one of the things, there was a study that Kantar just did of 21,000

Joy: 00:19:33

consumers across the world to understand how adver, how, you know, advertising lands

Joy: 00:19:40

with them and their receptivity to it.

Joy: 00:19:43

across, you know, media at large and the New York Times actually ranked first among

Joy: 00:19:49

US consumers for advertising receptivity.

Joy: 00:19:52

Ahead of Amazon, ahead of Apple tv, ahead of Netflix, and ahead of x. so, so we have the

Joy: 00:19:58

data from studies like that, that demonstrate that what readers, listeners, viewers see on

Joy: 00:20:06

the New York Times influence what they buy.

Joy: 00:20:09

And we're increasingly building products and measurement capabilities

Joy: 00:20:14

that are going to help us, better.

Joy: 00:20:17

Reflect that to marketers.

Joy: 00:20:19

you know, if you, if, if you take it like kind of up a bit, we know that when the New York

Joy: 00:20:25

Times covers a restaurant or a destination through 52 places, the amount of attention and

Joy: 00:20:31

business that goes that way is pretty striking.

Joy: 00:20:35

I mean, I've been on vacation.

Joy: 00:20:36

I've told someone I worked for the New York Times and they'd be like, oh my God, you know,

Joy: 00:20:39

when you guys wrote about this restaurant, it, it, you know, it was impossible to get

Brian: 00:20:43

it could be a bad thing.

Brian: 00:20:44

I, I, I was going, I, there's a place in Italy, we gone on vacation

Brian: 00:20:48

and it got the 48 hours treatment.

Brian: 00:20:50

I was like, oh, no.

Joy: 00:20:51

Uhhuh, but it moves markets, right?

Joy: 00:20:53

Like New York Times coverage has a massive amount of influence.

Joy: 00:20:57

And so, you know, you apply that to you, you that extends to the advertising.

Joy: 00:21:02

And so I think that, you know, we can be a place for both and, and I want to be a

Joy: 00:21:09

place where brands can see they can, yes.

Joy: 00:21:12

Come to us with brand message, but also at the very least, build a deep

Joy: 00:21:18

consideration layer with what we're doing

Brian: 00:21:20

Well, let's talk about how you do that.

Brian: 00:21:21

'cause you mentioned video and like, I think we first talked when you were at Quartz, right?

Brian: 00:21:26

And I think like about Quartz, like really focusing on brand and trying to make, I mean

Brian: 00:21:35

honestly like I really feel like the internet has failed at brand advertising, right?

Brian: 00:21:39

Like the only thing that has worked is video, right?

Brian: 00:21:42

And like Quartz was trying to come up with a different, flavor.

Brian: 00:21:46

Display and display has been like, honestly, from my standpoint, I'm not selling display ads.

Brian: 00:21:54

It's been a failure.

Brian: 00:21:55

Like display advertising on the internet has been a failure at this point.

Brian: 00:21:59

It's never gonna work.

Brian: 00:22:01

the best ad units in the internet are absolutely not display advertising.

Brian: 00:22:05

Their search advertising, they are, like Instagram ads.

Brian: 00:22:10

Amazing.

Brian: 00:22:11

Amazing ads.

Brian: 00:22:12

and they're basically Netflix, right?

Brian: 00:22:15

Like, I mean, some kind of like connected TV or something like that.

Brian: 00:22:19

Tell me if I'm wrong here, but to

Joy: 00:22:20

I, I, I would take a different view.

Joy: 00:22:23

Keep going.

Joy: 00:22:24

I, I, I keep, keep going.

Joy: 00:22:25

I like the provocative.

Joy: 00:22:26

I like the provocative view.

Brian: 00:22:28

I smear, the reputation of banner ads,

Joy: 00:22:31

Of, of display.

Joy: 00:22:32

Come on, keep going.

Brian: 00:22:33

I didn't call them banner ads, it could have been worse.

Brian: 00:22:36

and so.

Brian: 00:22:37

You gotta get, you gotta, you, I, I, it seems very clear like the New York Times Next Act, I mean, we

Brian: 00:22:42

talked about this on my other podcast yesterday.

Brian: 00:22:44

It's like, you know, Troy was going on about like, the New York Times trying is gonna be

Brian: 00:22:48

CNN before CNN can be the New York Times.

Brian: 00:22:50

And I think that's an easy one.

Brian: 00:22:51

But like, you know, like the, you guys are, are.

Brian: 00:22:55

Clearly emphasizing video in the app and for a bunch of different reasons,

Brian: 00:23:00

you're adding a watch tab to that app.

Brian: 00:23:02

It, to me it seems pretty clear that the, the, the strategy is an everything

Brian: 00:23:08

app for, an every like, lifestyle app.

Brian: 00:23:11

Like it's got news, it's got, you know, video and the, the video that you guys are doing.

Brian: 00:23:17

I, it, it seems to me it's, it's a str strategic priority as it happens, brands like video.

Brian: 00:23:24

I've been told, so I don't think you're gonna break out how much of your ad revenue is video

Brian: 00:23:31

advertising, but I would guess that video is a major part of, of the growth trajectory.

Joy: 00:23:38

so there's so much to.

Brian: 00:23:41

No, that's a long

Joy: 00:23:41

To, to, to unpick in all of that?

Joy: 00:23:43

I mean, I would say first and foremost, I think display advertising

Joy: 00:23:48

that is completely unstrategic,

Joy: 00:23:55

not thought of through first the user experience and the environment is

Joy: 00:24:01

probably, as you described, not effective.

Joy: 00:24:04

You know, and, and I think back to what Quartz was trying to do with the ad model

Joy: 00:24:10

that they created that would have focused, and that did focus far more on brand ads.

Joy: 00:24:14

If you look at what the Times built, probably nearly a decade ago with our

Joy: 00:24:19

Flex ad suite, it is similar in nature that it happens right in the flow.

Joy: 00:24:24

It's native to the actual, platform.

Joy: 00:24:27

And what we've seen is the.

Joy: 00:24:31

Proprietary ad formats combined with the deep, deep first party data signals

Joy: 00:24:37

that we have actually does perform and our display business is growing.

Joy: 00:24:42

and so I would say yes, we

Brian: 00:24:45

so your display business has grown, so there is still like an appetite for.

Joy: 00:24:49

yes.

Brian: 00:24:50

banner ads on web pages, basically.

Joy: 00:24:53

I mean, I would not put it in, in, in as simply as a banner ad on a webpage.

Joy: 00:24:58

I think there's a lot more craftsmanship behind what we're doing.

Joy: 00:25:01

no, but I, I think the display formats are working.

Joy: 00:25:05

we have launched, several new formats this year, one of which is a carousel

Joy: 00:25:12

that where you can actually kind of.

Joy: 00:25:14

Shop through, a few different panes in, in the ad unit.

Joy: 00:25:19

And yes, we have also prioritized video in that experience and really thought about ways

Joy: 00:25:25

to make our ads more watchable in the same way the product is becoming more watchable.

Joy: 00:25:32

but I would say that I. Not team display is useless or inval, you know, it has no

Brian: 00:25:40

has a

Brian: 00:25:40

place.

Brian: 00:25:41

It ha it, it, it has

Joy: 00:25:42

It does have a place in it.

Joy: 00:25:44

Yes, it does drive results.

Brian: 00:25:46

however, brands want video.

Joy: 00:25:49

That is also true, and I think so.

Joy: 00:25:51

Do consumers, I mean, you asked about the strategy.

Joy: 00:25:55

You

Brian: 00:25:55

Instagram.

Brian: 00:25:55

Instagram has amazing ads.

Brian: 00:25:58

Like they're amazing.

Brian: 00:25:59

Like anyone in publishing, like go and go to Instagram.

Brian: 00:26:02

And I don't like a lot about Instagram, but the way that ads work on Instagram.

Brian: 00:26:09

It's the way ads should work.

Brian: 00:26:10

It is not, it is not how ads work on webpages, in my view.

Brian: 00:26:14

There's a

Joy: 00:26:15

Say more.

Joy: 00:26:16

What is exactly, can

Brian: 00:26:17

it.

Brian: 00:26:18

It is.

Brian: 00:26:18

It, it is within the flow of the media experience.

Brian: 00:26:23

If the internet, this is my soapbox, the internet was like trying to recreate the

Brian: 00:26:29

magazine experiences with pages, with webpages, with the ads like it, the people

Brian: 00:26:34

who came up with the internet ad system.

Brian: 00:26:37

Were either technologists or there were people from the magazine industry and it got, kind

Brian: 00:26:42

of got in some ways, a little bit of both.

Brian: 00:26:45

And the, the page concept works really well within magazines, it's completely integrated.

Brian: 00:26:53

People get the vogue, you know, they, they would always go through as vogue for the ads as

Joy: 00:26:57

Yeah.

Joy: 00:26:58

Yeah, yeah.

Brian: 00:26:59

That is, that did not translate to, to webpages.

Brian: 00:27:01

It simply didn't.

Brian: 00:27:03

And so, but with video, it works perfectly.

Brian: 00:27:06

It's not trying to intrude.

Brian: 00:27:07

You have a hundred percent of attention.

Brian: 00:27:09

You're think about TikTok, you're going through it, you watch a video, then

Brian: 00:27:12

all of a sudden you have another video.

Brian: 00:27:14

And the video is, is, you know, there's a little promoted or sponsored or

Brian: 00:27:18

advertising on there and it, it works well.

Brian: 00:27:20

I watch football, I watch and they constantly break it.

Brian: 00:27:23

And then like I'm sitting through, you know, various CI ads and whatnot and like it works.

Brian: 00:27:30

And, and so I, I, that's what I wonder about, like video has to be a, a top priority,

Brian: 00:27:38

particularly it seems like you guys are really focused on under monetizing your video right

Brian: 00:27:43

now to get people to consume more of it.

Joy: 00:27:45

Yeah, I mean I think that that brings us to sort of why video, for the times, which

Joy: 00:27:50

is again, if we are going to reach a widest possible audience and bring people into the

Joy: 00:27:56

times, we have to make sure that we're doing it in modalities that they are, Predisposed to,

Joy: 00:28:01

and we know video is obviously one of those.

Joy: 00:28:05

And so making sure that we're as easy to read as we are to listen to as we are

Joy: 00:28:12

to watch is gonna be really important to make sure that we can bring in that widest

Joy: 00:28:16

possible audience and keep them coming back.

Joy: 00:28:18

So we have doubled viewership, you know, amount of people watching videos on the times.

Joy: 00:28:25

Over the last year and the watch tab is sort of the next manifestation of making sure, just as we

Joy: 00:28:34

have a listen tab, we now have a watch tab where you can scroll through, videos from all around

Joy: 00:28:41

the times, whether that be in news, whether that be in lifestyle, whether that be a clip of Ezra.

Joy: 00:28:48

you can, you can really watch the times and the point you made about us.

Joy: 00:28:53

Really downplaying ads, at least you know, to start is that entire watch

Joy: 00:29:00

tab is really dedicated to making sure that we are, optimizing for engagement.

Joy: 00:29:06

And once we better understand how that audience engages, we will then think

Joy: 00:29:11

about what the ad model for it looks like.

Joy: 00:29:13

The ad model has got to come downstream from engagement.

Joy: 00:29:16

Just sort of back to where we started on what the benefit of being a subscription first business is.

Joy: 00:29:22

We are constantly optimizing to make sure that we are first thinking about the engaged audience.

Brian: 00:29:28

Okay, so, so first it's the get that habit within on the watch tab in, in the app.

Brian: 00:29:35

And then it's to monetize it.

Joy: 00:29:37

In the way that it is appropriate and that will not suppress engagement.

Joy: 00:29:41

But to your point, how are we gonna do that?

Joy: 00:29:44

I mean, I think what is going to be native to that, format is going to be, you know, video is

Joy: 00:29:50

going to be video in the same way that you see on the platforms from ads in is, is interstitials.

Brian: 00:29:57

Gotcha.

Brian: 00:29:58

yeah, because I mean, people are used to it.

Brian: 00:30:00

It, it, it works basically at the end of the

Joy: 00:30:02

and we'll be doing, we'll launch a beta for a few select advertisers

Joy: 00:30:06

probably in the beginning of next year.

Joy: 00:30:09

once we really have a better understanding of exactly how audiences are engaging

Joy: 00:30:14

in making sure we have a critical mass of people who are engaging in that tab.

Brian: 00:30:17

And do you see this as like a mobile experience or is it to be

Brian: 00:30:23

an app like on on a TV eventually?

Joy: 00:30:26

We're starting right now with, you know, I think making sure that the New York Times Core app

Joy: 00:30:33

is a reflection of all of the best things that you can get from the New York Times on any given day.

Joy: 00:30:39

and, you know, I can't predict the future of where that necessarily goes, but you

Joy: 00:30:44

know, we, we wanna make sure that people are seeking us out wherever they are.

Joy: 00:30:49

Of getting content.

Brian: 00:30:51

So how are you thinking about direct versus indirect demand?

Brian: 00:30:54

and by that I mean the programmatic question.

Brian: 00:30:57

I can remember back at Digiday, we had like stories.

Brian: 00:31:00

It's like the New York Times is stopping open programmatic and Look, publishers.

Brian: 00:31:05

I mean, I think this is another, maybe you catch me on Friday, but like a programmatic for the

Brian: 00:31:10

most part has been a disaster for publishers.

Brian: 00:31:12

I think we can call it that right now.

Brian: 00:31:15

Like it just is, has not like really for, for premium publishing.

Brian: 00:31:19

I don't think it has really been, a, a boon like, to say the least.

Brian: 00:31:24

I always go back to who has the yachts at can and it's not the publisher.

Brian: 00:31:29

I think there's a reason for that.

Brian: 00:31:31

how do you end up explain like how you think of, because look, I mean ultimately like

Brian: 00:31:36

programmatic is just a form of buying, et cetera.

Brian: 00:31:39

And if

Joy: 00:31:40

It's automated buying.

Brian: 00:31:41

Yeah, your buyers want to transact that way.

Brian: 00:31:44

They wanna transact that way.

Brian: 00:31:45

There's a lot of different ways to do programmatic.

Brian: 00:31:48

It's not all, open programmatic, but where, where is, you know, I'm just like looking around.

Brian: 00:31:55

I see, I see more, I see more programmatic ads appearing.

Brian: 00:31:58

how are you thinking about that?

Brian: 00:32:00

Because there's an amazing pool of demand, obviously, that you're only gonna reach through

Brian: 00:32:04

these kind of scaled, automated channels.

Brian: 00:32:07

But at the same time, you want to, you wanna keep the quality high and

Brian: 00:32:10

you want to, you wanna be premium.

Joy: 00:32:12

Yes.

Joy: 00:32:12

Well, I mean like, that's exactly right.

Joy: 00:32:14

We are focused on premium programmatic.

Joy: 00:32:16

We are focused on building out our, you know, direct programmatic

Joy: 00:32:20

relationships as much as possible.

Joy: 00:32:23

I think.

Joy: 00:32:24

Like every other piece of the business programmatic should be

Joy: 00:32:27

looked at as strategic execution.

Joy: 00:32:30

If you just put your inventory in the open and like let it rip, you're gonna

Joy: 00:32:34

get exactly what you put in, right?

Joy: 00:32:36

Like you're gonna get crappy ads, you're gonna get terrible yield.

Joy: 00:32:40

and so people think of programmatic as just the set it and forget it part of the business.

Joy: 00:32:45

And I will say the way that we look at that part of the business is.

Joy: 00:32:50

It is a method with which through which many, many, many advertisers want to

Joy: 00:32:54

transact, and we should treat it as a channel that, deserves that kind of attention.

Joy: 00:33:01

And so making sure we have appropriate ad quality, making sure that we are building

Joy: 00:33:07

products that advertisers can access.

Joy: 00:33:11

Programmatically that, you know, benefit from the signals that we

Joy: 00:33:15

are also, you know, able to achieve.

Joy: 00:33:18

Not all of them.

Joy: 00:33:18

You know, there is still gonna be a difference between what you are going to be able to

Joy: 00:33:21

get through the New York Times through a direct relationship versus what you may

Joy: 00:33:25

be able to get, in A PMP or even more, you know, even further afield, the open market.

Joy: 00:33:32

But we wanna make sure that, you know, we are attracting quality demand.

Joy: 00:33:38

investing in what, you know, the bid supply, the decoration looks like, making sure that,

Joy: 00:33:42

you know, we are appropriately getting, sort of the right advertisers in through that channel.

Joy: 00:33:48

And so it is a very important part of our business, that I think.

Joy: 00:33:52

If you only focus on direct advertising, you do miss a good portion of the marketplace.

Joy: 00:33:59

That, and, and even not just whole advertisers, but whole parts of

Joy: 00:34:03

advertising budgets that are reserved specifically for those automated channels.

Brian: 00:34:08

Yeah.

Brian: 00:34:09

I've always wondered, like over the years, I would always like, I'm gonna have Adam

Brian: 00:34:13

Ingold on this podcast like in a next month.

Brian: 00:34:16

Like, and I've always asked him over the years, I was like, when are

Brian: 00:34:18

you gonna sign the New York Times?

Brian: 00:34:20

and you know, because a lot of people like to hate on, you know, the bul and operate

Brian: 00:34:24

and the content recommendation ad networks.

Brian: 00:34:27

but they're one of the most successful of the open web advertising ecosystem.

Brian: 00:34:35

I dunno, but you guys have never, I don't know, is, is there, is there ever like a pathway be

Brian: 00:34:39

that that content recommendation works within a premium environment like the New York Times?

Joy: 00:34:45

can't say that I can necessarily see the pathway.

Joy: 00:34:50

I mean the, the thing I'll go back to is what does the user experience look like?

Joy: 00:34:55

What does the design look like?

Joy: 00:34:57

Is it premium enough for the times?

Joy: 00:35:00

And, you know, I don't know that, it would be something we would consider, but,

Brian: 00:35:05

Never say never.

Joy: 00:35:07

I mean, I don't know.

Joy: 00:35:08

You should ask Adam on a Friday.

Brian: 00:35:12

so the other thing is, is is print, right?

Brian: 00:35:16

Like so where, 'cause look, I think print still has, has a purpose when you see a

Brian: 00:35:20

little revival of, in magazines, particularly niche magazines, I'm sure you know.

Brian: 00:35:26

Print does real well with, you know, with T magazine and print and the newspaper product.

Brian: 00:35:33

I mean, at some point it's going to, to bottom out.

Brian: 00:35:36

maybe we haven't like, reached that or maybe it won't.

Brian: 00:35:39

I think it's still to make a statement with like a full page print ad. I mean, you still need that.

Brian: 00:35:43

I mean, that, that, that'll still be around.

Joy: 00:35:46

Yeah.

Joy: 00:35:46

I mean, look, the newspaper is.

Joy: 00:35:48

Remains one of our most iconic products.

Joy: 00:35:51

It's singularly powerful, unique.

Joy: 00:35:54

It's influential.

Joy: 00:35:54

It captures, you know, 3 million people.

Joy: 00:35:57

It still has a very large and loyal audience who really, really value that modality.

Joy: 00:36:06

and I think, you know, just scroll LinkedIn when advertisers.

Joy: 00:36:10

Launch full page ads in the New York Times, you actually see them post it, right?

Joy: 00:36:15

Like there's something about a full page print ad there.

Joy: 00:36:20

It is a place that we continue to innovate, whether it be the GE execution

Joy: 00:36:25

that we did a few years back to.

Joy: 00:36:28

We took over, the New York Times magazine for Cartier last year with just stories about love.

Joy: 00:36:34

I mean, there, it, it is a. Format where we see a lot of opportunity for innovation

Joy: 00:36:40

and a lot of opportunity for impact.

Joy: 00:36:42

I like to talk about a cover wrap of The New York Times as another form of outdoor

Joy: 00:36:47

advertising because you see it everywhere.

Joy: 00:36:50

so, you know, look, is a. sort of channel that is in secular decline.

Joy: 00:36:56

I'm not gonna pretend that it isn't, but I still think that a, the New York Times has

Joy: 00:37:01

the broadest reach for any newspaper on the planet, and you know, whether it's here in the

Joy: 00:37:07

US you wanna reach readers or across the world.

Joy: 00:37:10

and we continue to see really impactful, innovative campaigns coming outta that channel.

Joy: 00:37:15

And it's a really, really valuable, you know, format for advertisers who are

Joy: 00:37:21

looking to reach a specific audience.

Brian: 00:37:23

for sure.

Brian: 00:37:24

and what is the role of the content studio now, like T Brand Studio, like

Brian: 00:37:29

I can remember in that like sort of.

Joy: 00:37:31

Yeah.

Brian: 00:37:32

Period.

Brian: 00:37:32

And courts was like, you know, in that like where it's like there was these ad

Brian: 00:37:37

agency, like things that were being created within publishers and sometimes they won.

Brian: 00:37:42

Can Lions, i I, you

Joy: 00:37:44

Yeah.

Joy: 00:37:45

Yeah.

Joy: 00:37:45

T Brand has won Cannes Lions.

Joy: 00:37:46

Yes.

Brian: 00:37:48

and.

Brian: 00:37:49

Then kind of like reality sort of set in a little bit that these are lightly,

Brian: 00:37:54

like a little bit different businesses.

Brian: 00:37:56

I feel like, like there it's, it's good as a support to an advertising business, but like

Brian: 00:38:03

getting into the agency business is like, as my fellow podcast host, Alex Schleifer

Brian: 00:38:10

says, it's like I leave it to publishers to find the second worst business to be in.

Brian: 00:38:18

but, you know, look, they're different businesses, but like, you know, I think of

Brian: 00:38:22

like, what is the role now of like, of T brand?

Joy: 00:38:26

Yeah, T Brand is an exceptionally important part of the overall ad business.

Joy: 00:38:32

It is differentiating, it is helping our brands still tell stories, in ways that we know resonate

Joy: 00:38:40

with our readers or our listeners, or our viewers.

Joy: 00:38:43

It's as we've.

Joy: 00:38:45

Grown the portfolio.

Joy: 00:38:47

We have now launched, you know, specific, content formats for the specific brands.

Joy: 00:38:54

So that's really helped us diversify how we think about T brand.

Joy: 00:38:58

supporting advertisers with whom we work.

Joy: 00:39:00

I mean, look, we just launched a podcast last year with L'Oreal group called, this Is Not

Joy: 00:39:05

a Beauty Podcast, and it actually was at the top of charts in the US and in the UK for

Joy: 00:39:12

actual just like general interest podcast.

Joy: 00:39:15

It was hosted by Isabella Rossini.

Joy: 00:39:17

So, so it is continuing to really be a differentiator for the New

Joy: 00:39:21

York Times when it comes to.

Joy: 00:39:24

Products that demonstrate excellence and ways that advertisers can create content or

Joy: 00:39:31

podcasts or, articles or experiences that, you know, resonate best with that times audience

Joy: 00:39:41

or athletic audience or cooking audience.

Joy: 00:39:44

it really, it, it is our center of excellence for creativity on the ad side.

Brian: 00:39:49

Okay.

Brian: 00:39:50

so I guess what has changed.

Brian: 00:39:52

A little bit.

Brian: 00:39:52

'cause I, I feel like, you know, there was a period where it was like, okay, these are gonna be

Brian: 00:39:56

like ad agencies, they're gonna like do ad agency.

Brian: 00:39:59

And then like, it got a little, it felt like it got a little, I'm not saying it was at the times,

Brian: 00:40:04

but it felt like it got a little further afield.

Brian: 00:40:05

Like, I can remember having like craft at like one of these digital events and they

Brian: 00:40:10

were going through their list of agencies and Vice was one of their agencies.

Brian: 00:40:14

And, and, and I think like media is.

Brian: 00:40:17

Is a slightly different business and, and it can support a lot of programs.

Brian: 00:40:23

but being an ad agency is a little bit, is a little

Joy: 00:40:26

and that's not what T Brand is trying to do.

Joy: 00:40:28

I mean, I think what you're probably pointing to is, you know, is it profitable to do that kind

Joy: 00:40:34

of business in the way that you're describing?

Joy: 00:40:36

And I think what we have found is that a mix of content and media makes.

Joy: 00:40:41

Those types of businesses far more scalable and sustainable than a pure play.

Joy: 00:40:47

I'm just gonna be act as your creative shop.

Joy: 00:40:49

We do plenty of work on behalf of brands, but we have to make sure that we are doing it

Joy: 00:40:54

again in a way that's sustainable and scalable.

Brian: 00:40:56

What is the role that events.

Brian: 00:40:59

Play because there are a lot of your peers who don't have, as, as as big of subscription

Brian: 00:41:06

business who are like so all in on events and like, you know, they have pivoted hard into them.

Brian: 00:41:11

And like sometimes I think, well, that makes sense, but at the same

Brian: 00:41:15

time, like, why didn't you do this?

Brian: 00:41:17

Like, you know, until now.

Brian: 00:41:19

And so it's probably out of, you know, desperation to some degree.

Brian: 00:41:23

how, how do you end up thinking about the events?

Brian: 00:41:27

As, as part of the ad business.

Joy: 00:41:30

I would say about our events business is that we're really focused on quality.

Joy: 00:41:35

Over quantity.

Joy: 00:41:37

We have two tent pole events that have been years running Climate Forward, which is four,

Joy: 00:41:44

which was in its fourth or fifth year this year.

Joy: 00:41:46

And DealBook, which is in its 14th year this year.

Joy: 00:41:51

And those are Newsmaking events with the most important people on stage and in the room.

Joy: 00:41:58

and that has been an avenue through which our advertisers.

Joy: 00:42:03

Can, work with us and it's been successful and it's been growing.

Joy: 00:42:08

We launched our Well Festival, this year and our Hard Fork Live event this

Joy: 00:42:14

year as sort of new entrants, but we aren't going for hundreds of events.

Joy: 00:42:19

We are really trying to think about quality.

Joy: 00:42:23

Of the event itself, the news, making capabilities of these events, and then

Joy: 00:42:28

how that attracts the right audience, both on the stage in the room, and then why

Joy: 00:42:33

advertisers are gonna wanna be a part of that.

Joy: 00:42:35

we are optimistic.

Joy: 00:42:37

It is a growing business, but it is not one that we are looking to emphasize quantity.

Joy: 00:42:44

again, it, it's kind of similar to the way I talked about T Brand.

Joy: 00:42:48

It isn't just to do it.

Joy: 00:42:50

To say that that's just another top line revenue stream.

Joy: 00:42:53

I think we have to think about how it strategically fits into the ad business,

Joy: 00:42:58

making sure it, again, follows a profitable and sustainable model for the ad business.

Joy: 00:43:03

And also is something that, you know, frankly attracts audiences to the times.

Joy: 00:43:11

you know, I, I think there has to be a reason for doing it beyond just advertising.

Brian: 00:43:15

Right.

Brian: 00:43:16

so final topic is around ai, like we have to ask.

Brian: 00:43:19

It's, I'm legally, legally required to ask about ai.

Brian: 00:43:23

first of all, how are you, how are you using it?

Brian: 00:43:26

I mean, I, I like, AI is such like a broad term, right?

Brian: 00:43:29

And I, I know you're using it through targeting, through brand match.

Brian: 00:43:33

but just walk me through how you see ai, helping and being a useful

Brian: 00:43:38

tool for the advertising business.

Joy: 00:43:41

I mean, I think you, you mentioned what we're seeing most readily, which is

Joy: 00:43:46

through that ad product that we launched called Brand Match about a year ago.

Joy: 00:43:50

and the thesis behind Brand Match was for a long time advertisers have

Joy: 00:43:55

contextually targeted as a method.

Joy: 00:43:57

They have audience targeted as a method, but both of those things are pretty,

Joy: 00:44:02

Specific in the way that they're formed you.

Joy: 00:44:05

You can have two advertisers, let's say Chanel and Cartier, who think of

Joy: 00:44:11

themselves as very, very different.

Joy: 00:44:13

They think of themselves as having distinct audiences.

Joy: 00:44:15

They think of their products as having distinct qualities.

Joy: 00:44:19

But when you looked at the RFPs from both of those advertisers, they were going after the

Joy: 00:44:23

exact same audience segment and the exact same.

Joy: 00:44:26

Kind of contextual alignment opportunity.

Joy: 00:44:30

And so what Brand Match has done is it essentially ingests the brief of an advertiser, understands

Joy: 00:44:37

what I would call like the essence of the brief, and then it actually displays places across the

Joy: 00:44:44

times, articles across the times that would be relevant to that brief, as well as identifying new

Joy: 00:44:49

audiences that would be receptive to this kind of.

Joy: 00:44:55

Brief or the message that the brand is actually, kind of has as a part of their campaign.

Joy: 00:45:00

And it's actually helped advertisers find new, effective places to run

Joy: 00:45:05

beyond, you know, just fashion or travel.

Joy: 00:45:09

but actually, you know, something that might be in even like the athletic or in cooking that,

Joy: 00:45:15

you know, really aligns with the, the sort of.

Joy: 00:45:19

Essence of what the brand stands for or the brand message stands for.

Joy: 00:45:22

So we've seen, you know, click-through rates increase like plus 30%

Joy: 00:45:28

over more standard targeting.

Joy: 00:45:30

We've seen if an advertiser's running a video, we've seen VCR rates increase over 30%.

Joy: 00:45:36

So like we're, we're definitely finding.

Joy: 00:45:39

New relevant places for brands to run that they wouldn't have otherwise.

Joy: 00:45:45

and I think it actually, as we look into 2026, we're really looking to

Joy: 00:45:49

enhance brand match to be more turnkey.

Joy: 00:45:52

We're looking for other ways we can utilize generative ai, and our kind of

Joy: 00:45:58

really large, registered user base to kind of continue to help advertisers target.

Brian: 00:46:05

How about in the ad sales process?

Brian: 00:46:06

Like in, like in the background, like, I mean, I've, we had a, a breakfast forum the other, the

Brian: 00:46:12

other week and, a fellow CRO was talking about, a generative AI tool in order to speed up, you know,

Brian: 00:46:21

like responses to RFPs like, and, I don't know.

Brian: 00:46:25

I feel like, you know, the, there's a lot of like unsexy, stuff that goes on at publishers,

Brian: 00:46:31

that at least in theory, AI should, should help with, you know, 'cause I keep looking

Brian: 00:46:37

for, I'm like all these, all these billions are going in there that this has to result in

Brian: 00:46:41

productivity gains and like, there has to be easy pickings within the publishing industry.

Joy: 00:46:46

I think there's two paths, that we're experimenting with.

Joy: 00:46:50

I think there's like value creation, so how can we create products that leverage generative AI

Joy: 00:46:55

to do better targeting and create, outcomes.

Joy: 00:46:58

And then we think about productivity, gains, which is how do we.

Joy: 00:47:04

Think about some of those presale prospecting processes or thinking about

Joy: 00:47:09

how adver, how our sales executives can just find information more easily.

Joy: 00:47:14

How can we make that experience a bit more agentic so it isn't, Hey, can I, let me Slack.

Joy: 00:47:20

The Slack channel.

Joy: 00:47:21

One more time to ask what the specs are.

Joy: 00:47:24

You know, like there has to be a better way, so, so I think process and productivity gains are

Joy: 00:47:30

things that we are actively experimenting with.

Joy: 00:47:33

On the sales side,

Brian: 00:47:35

Okay, so nothing specific to share on that.

Brian: 00:47:38

You don't have any sort of gen gen ai, prospecting tool that you, you're rolling out.

Joy: 00:47:45

No, but I think it's, I mean, we're definitely experimenting with understanding

Joy: 00:47:49

how it's going to improve upon the process.

Joy: 00:47:51

I don't think it's completely, you know, it isn't, it isn't replacement.

Joy: 00:47:54

It is, to your point, there's a lot of rote work that goes on.

Joy: 00:47:58

How can we make some of that more automated to leave space, to be more creative, to

Joy: 00:48:04

do more strategic work, that is not just plugging numbers into spreadsheets or, you

Joy: 00:48:10

know, looking through media radar reports.

Brian: 00:48:13

So final thing is around the sort of talent driven shows.

Brian: 00:48:17

I mean, you guys have been very successful on, on podcasting and there's obviously a

Brian: 00:48:22

lot of energy right now in the sort of quote unquote creator, part of the media ecosystem.

Brian: 00:48:30

now the times has always been like.

Brian: 00:48:32

A very institutional brand, and I think it will remain.

Brian: 00:48:36

That doesn't mean that you don't have your own like talent and stars, et

Joy: 00:48:41

Yeah, we've got stars.

Joy: 00:48:42

We love making stars.

Brian: 00:48:44

but how do you end up thinking about that as, but it's still the times, right?

Brian: 00:48:49

So like, I mean, you have, there are, there are things that you won't, you

Brian: 00:48:53

know, it's not like Mr. Beast is, I don't answer us or it's not gonna be Mr.

Brian: 00:48:57

Beast.

Brian: 00:48:58

You know, I mean, there's lots of different things that, you know, theoretically

Brian: 00:49:01

you can do with creators that is not gonna work in, in the New York Times.

Brian: 00:49:05

But how do you think about that within the advertising strategy of how you.

Brian: 00:49:11

Leverage, you know, the, the reputation and the influence that talent has in a way that does

Brian: 00:49:19

work with the New York Times brand and approach.

Joy: 00:49:21

Yeah, I mean, I think our talent.

Joy: 00:49:24

Stars, as you call 'em.

Joy: 00:49:25

You know, it's, it's an extension of the New York Times brand.

Joy: 00:49:29

They also happen to have some of their own distinct audiences.

Joy: 00:49:33

So, you know, you think about DealBook and Andrew Ross Sorkin and advertisers

Joy: 00:49:37

who are looking to reach, you know.

Joy: 00:49:40

Business executives and C-suite executives.

Joy: 00:49:43

And so, you know, a million of them are reading DealBook every single morning.

Joy: 00:49:46

so that is a really distinct place for advertisers to be able to tap into those audiences.

Joy: 00:49:52

you know, you have Ezra Klein, you now have Ross Doit who's, our conservative podcaster.

Joy: 00:49:58

you know, you have hard fork, you have modern love, we have a lot

Joy: 00:50:01

of, personalities, talent with.

Joy: 00:50:05

Distinct, you know, listenership communities and advertisers have the opportunity to run messages

Joy: 00:50:12

that reach these very, very, very big audiences.

Joy: 00:50:15

I think that that's what the times really does bring to the dynamic of, you know, our, our.

Joy: 00:50:22

Stars or our creators, however, our talent, you know, they come to the times because they

Joy: 00:50:26

wanna do their best work and the times can give them access to the tens of millions of people

Joy: 00:50:31

that we're reaching on a daily basis so that their work can see the widest possible audience.

Joy: 00:50:36

I mean, you look at the daily, you know, eight years running, I think it has something

Joy: 00:50:40

like 5 billion downloads on, on Spotify.

Joy: 00:50:44

I mean, that is massive scale and, It is the way that many people have a

Joy: 00:50:49

relationship with the New York Times.

Joy: 00:50:50

They think about the New York Times, they think about the daily.

Joy: 00:50:52

but it is the very vast audience that we can bring into the times that can really

Joy: 00:50:59

help these shows find their audiences.

Joy: 00:51:02

And I also think that, you know.

Joy: 00:51:04

The access that these talents, these shows, these hosts have inside of the New York Times

Joy: 00:51:11

newsroom, when they need experts to talk about AI or what's happening in the Supreme Court.

Joy: 00:51:17

it, it sort of also provides them with an opportunity to kind of have access

Joy: 00:51:23

to these experts in their own newsroom.

Joy: 00:51:25

I think they all really, take pride in the mission of the New York Times and, and, and sort of our.

Joy: 00:51:32

Heft when it comes to being experts in, in pretty much every place,

Brian: 00:51:37

But the, the final thing on that is like, do you, do you see DealBook as a, a

Brian: 00:51:43

model that can be replicated because it's been.

Brian: 00:51:47

It's been very successful and it's a little bit of an outlier.

Brian: 00:51:51

I feel like with a lot of the New York Times approach, you don't see, you know,

Brian: 00:51:55

I mean, like, Andrew Kins on, on, he's got cnbc, he's got, you know, deal, book.

Brian: 00:52:00

I don't know how he, he must never sleep.

Brian: 00:52:02

He just wrote a book too.

Joy: 00:52:03

I

Joy: 00:52:04

don't think he does.

Joy: 00:52:06

He is one of the most impressive people I have ever worked with in my entire career.

Brian: 00:52:10

Right.

Brian: 00:52:10

So like I'm wondering, like do you, do you see that kind of, 'cause it's a very valuable

Brian: 00:52:15

franchise, you know, I mean, as a standalone

Joy: 00:52:18

It really is.

Brian: 00:52:19

it would be valuable.

Brian: 00:52:20

is that like a model that, that, that is, is able to be replicated or is that unique?

Joy: 00:52:27

I mean, I think that works for DealBook because it is that,

Joy: 00:52:30

you know, really specific audience.

Joy: 00:52:31

Andrew does so much cultivating on his own of, you know, his guests and curating that, that program,

Joy: 00:52:37

he is very, very, very, very hands-on throughout that entire franchise and it makes it excellent.

Joy: 00:52:45

you know.

Joy: 00:52:46

I can't, I think every show, every host, each franchise is gonna have its own.

Joy: 00:52:52

Version of that.

Joy: 00:52:54

I don't think they all need to be DealBook.

Joy: 00:52:56

You know, I think the Athletic has several really, popular programs and hosts who convene

Joy: 00:53:03

and cultivate audiences in their own ways.

Joy: 00:53:06

I don't think that it's.

Joy: 00:53:07

I don't, I wouldn't say everyone has to be a deal book.

Joy: 00:53:09

I think that there is a lot of value to audiences and to the ad market through the, fact that, you

Joy: 00:53:16

know, each of these shows increasingly have, you know, a very, a very distinct, loyal audience.

Joy: 00:53:22

Hard fork is another example of, you know, it, it covers wide ranging topics of AI on a

Joy: 00:53:28

weekly basis in like a very, very deep way.

Joy: 00:53:31

And when we did Hard Fork live.

Joy: 00:53:33

Out in San Francisco, we had people lining up outside the door at SF Jazz to, to come in.

Joy: 00:53:39

So they, they each have their own fan base.

Joy: 00:53:41

And again, when you have that kind of engaged audience, it is something that creates a lot

Joy: 00:53:45

of value for the advertising business and, and, and for the, the broader, subscription business.

Brian: 00:53:51

Okay, cool.

Brian: 00:53:52

Joy, thanks so much.

Brian: 00:53:53

Really appreciate you taking time.

Joy: 00:53:55

Brian, this is really fun.

Joy: 00:53:56

Thank you so much for having me.

Brian: 00:53:58

Okay,