Paper looks beyond print subscriptions
Having scored a hit with a podcast, New York Times turns its attention to TV shows
The New York Times plans to expand its roster of television shows and podcasts, retooling popular columns and behind-thescenes tales of its journalism to help attract subscribers who may have never read an article in the newspaper.
Buoyed by the success of The Daily, a hit podcast hosted by Michael Barbaro, Times executives see new storytelling tools as a gateway to audiences who may be coaxed into signing up for the newspaper, executives told advertisers at an event.
Projects include a podcast for kids and Caliphate, an audio series that tells the story of a Times reporter covering Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant).
Licensing fees
The licensing fees and ads from TV shows and podcasts will be small at first, and unlikely to approach the revenue the company gets from traditional sources.
But Times executives see them as tools to attract more subscribers, which now total 3.6 million, including customers for its crossword puzzle and cooking product.
That subscriber growth, which has been fuelled by the newspaper’s coverage of President Trump and the #MeToo movement, has caused the shares to soar 62 per cent in the past year.
As part of its plans, the Times is also looking to create a TV show similar to The Daily, Sam Dolnick, the newspaper’s assistant managing editor, said at the event.
The publisher announced a Netflix programme based on its popular medical column, Diagnosis, and is in talks to develop a show based on a recent Times series called Overlooked about famous women and minorities who didn’t get obituaries.
A Showtime docuseries that depicts a year in the life of Times reporters was screened last weekend at the Tribeca Film Festival.
The Sunday Styles column Modern Love, a cooking column by Sam Sifton and the Times crossword puzzle could all become TV shows, Dolnick said.
Times executives are now focused on making money from assets they long gave away for free — like having their reporters discuss their work on another media company’s talk show. While many Times reporters still do that, The Daily has become the main forum for many of its journalists to talk about the latest developments in Washington.