NYT Endures Forgettable First Quarter

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The New York Times last week released gloomy First Quarter results that reflected an 11.2 percent decline in ad revenues and plunging net income.

Net income was $3.1 million, or 2 cents a share in FQ 2013, compared to $42.1 million or 28 cents a share during the comparable period a year ago. Overall ad revenues dropped 11.2 percent, but the Times' print properties, which include the Boston Globe, Worcester Telegram & Gazette and the International Herald Tribune, suffered a 13.3 percent decline in ad revenues. Digital advertising sank 4 percent compared to year-ago FQ results.

In response to the grim figures, Times management plans to unveil reduced cost subscription models, along with a premium subscription rate that would include access to Times-sponsored events.  As previously reported, the Times also is focusing on its own brand and attempting to unload its New England newspapers (see "TUOL" post 4/16/13).

On a bright note, digital subscriptions of the Times and Intl. Trib jumped 49 percent in the First Quarter compared to 2012 figures, reaching 676,000. 

NY Times Heralds Change of International Daily

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sometime this Fall, the International Herald Tribune, the English language daily that is sold in more than 160 nations, will be re-dubbed the International New York Times and a revamped Web site will be rolled out, the New York Times reported today.

The daily, which is printed at 38 sites worldwide, debuted in 1887, thanks to founder James Gordon Bennett, Jr., as the European edition of The New York Herald, later becoming The New York Herald Tribune in 1959.

After that paper folded, The Washington Post and New York Times rescued the European daily in 1967 and renamed it The International Herald Tribune, formally becoming co-owners in 1991. The Times bought out the Post's interest in 2003.

The Times article said the paper's masthead would undergo change as well.  "TUOL"'s worldly staff has always relied on the Trib during European sojourns to keep abreast of how its beloved New York Yankees and Boston Celtics are faring and to subdue bouts of homesickness.