New York Times Stock Falls Seven Percent After Ad Revenue Decline

Early trading on Wednesday revealed New York Times stock fell seven percent, or $29.61, after the company reported third quarter declines in advertising revenues.

According to a report from the Times, advertising revenue for print is down 9.7 percent as compared to the third quarter of 2018 and down 17.2 percent for digital advertisements. The media company also reported digital advertising had dropped by 5.4 percent, while print advertising fell 7.9 percent.

Net profit for the third quarter decreased 34 percent from a year ago to $16.4 million and total revenues rose 2.7 percent to $429 million.

While the Times‘ stock and ad revenue suffered, the company announced it now has 4 million digital-only subscribers and 4.9 million total subscriptions, 500,000 of which are outside of the United States.

In a phone call with particular analysts, Times president and CEO Mark Thompson discussed the company’s participation in Facebook News.

“More important than the immediate financial benefits of the agreement is its strategic significance,” Thompson said of Facebook News, a new subscription news service. “We previously received small payments for participation in various experiments and innovations.”

Thompson also said “this is the first time that a Silicon Valley major has recognized the value of Times journalism to its platform with a substantial multi-year deal.”

As of recently, the New York Times has made several headlines after it was revealed a senior staff editor made antisemitic and racist comments on his Twitter page.

“I was going to say ‘Crappy Jew Year,’ but one of my resolutions is to be less anti-Semitic,” Tom Wright-Piersanti tweeted in January 2010. “So…. HAPPY Jew Year. You Jews.”

One month later, in September, it was revealed that Jazmine Hughes, an associate editor of the New York Times Magazine, had also made a series of racist and antisemitic comments on social media over a multi-year span.

“Dating white people is a rich tapestry of somehow making fun of them for everything they do,” Hughes tweeted in June 2015. “Wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

The Times faced scrutiny in April after its international edition published a cartoon with “anti-Semitic tropes” that portrayed a blind President Donald Trump led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu depicted as a dog with a Star of David collar around its neck.