Reporters go out into the world, they bear witness to important things that are happening that the public should know about, and then they translate that with sensitivity and judgment in a way that's meant to get people to understanding. And you've got human beings in all parts of that equation. I certainly think that technology, including AI, will help make parts of that, but I don't think it replaces the sort of thing at the core.
Meredith, where does this podcast find you?
I am in Washington, D.C. today, which is unusual for me on a Tuesday. Coming to you from the Washington Bureau of the New York Times.
Actually, let's use that as a jumping-off point because it's kind of a tale of two cities in terms of the Times and the Washington Post. The Times — this is kind of the mother of all softballs, but it's true — the Times just posted its strongest year in recent memory: 13 million subscribers, revenues approaching three billion. Meanwhile, the Washington Post has laid off around a third of its staff. And it seems that, generally speaking, legacy media companies are in a bit of a crisis mode right now. And the Times is, I think, on any objective measure, doing well. How would you distinguish your strategy? What have you done right, or what do you think is working that's not working at other legacy media companies?
That's a big one to start off on. Let me start by saying, you know, I'm rooting for all high-quality independent journalism. I think the Post is still doing plenty of high-quality independent journalism, particularly original reporting on big, important topics, and there are a number of outlets doing it. I think, you know, I can talk to you about what we are doing and what I think has gone right so far at the Times. Probably the biggest and most important part of the story of the results that you just described is that we have made a sustained and very deliberate investment over a very long period of time in original independent journalism. That's in journalists and in, you know, the support system, the structure around them to make sure they can do extraordinary work. We've got the largest newsroom in the history of the New York Times now. It's 2,300 people. We have 3,000 total journalists and content makers at the Times, and they are pursuing just an extraordinary range of coverage. You know, things that are of great civic and geopolitical consequence, and also stuff that's just deeply relevant to people in their personal lives. And I think, you know, the Times has invested sort of throughout its history in that and recognizes that that's, you know, where the value is most derived, and that's the thing we do best in terms of long-term value creation. I'll add to that that we have had a very clear strategy that we've been out now for, you know, in some ways multiple decades, but I can at least speak to the last decade, and we've given that strategy to be the essential subscription to curious people everywhere. You know, we've given it the time and the space and the resources to play out. And I think we also have a long history of using tech and format innovation to make our work more and more accessible to people. So I think all those things are working, and I just want to say, and we will be, you know, hard at it for years to come. I mean, it's not that this is — high-quality independent journalism is a hard business. Doing the kind of work I just described is hard work, particularly the journalism part of it, and you're going to — you know, I will be talking about the deliberate investment in that and the fight to keep doing it for years to come.
So you're the CEO of a public company, and public investors want growth. What do you see as the biggest avenues for growth for the New York Times Company?
I always say I think our best days are still very much ahead of us, and I say that as the CEO of a company that's been around for 175 years. Growth — we see growth, you know, in news and in our lifestyle products, and I hope we get a chance to talk about those too. We see growth domestically and internationally. And we see growth in an opportunity to take so much of the extraordinary work we are doing and push that work into new formats and modalities where lots and lots of people are getting their information, and particularly this year, video. We are very, very focused on making the Times — it will still take us some time to do it — but making the Times as preferred a brand for watching the news and the other things we do as it is for reading and listening to it.
So you've — my understanding is you have sued several AI companies, at the same time you have just signed a deal with Amazon. How are you — what is your strategy and approach to AI?
Yeah. I would regard the two things you just said — enforcing our rights in court, and also doing the deal we've done with Amazon — as kind of a piece. The idea here is, this is a business that is grounded in making high-quality original independent journalism and other kinds of content that is intellectual property. And copyright law protects that intellectual property from its use by others without our permission and without control over our work. So, you know, that's what the lawsuits are about: enforcing the rights around our intellectual property. And I'll just say there, the companies that are making the LLMs are spending, in many cases, hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars on things like talent and power and compute — all the stuff that goes into making models. And one of the things that goes into making models is high-quality information. And, you know, we'd like to see them pay a fair wage for that as well. And at the same time, the Times has a long track record and history of, you know, forging partnerships and doing deals with companies where we feel like we're getting sustainable fair value exchange for our work, and where we have control over how our work is used, and where it comports with our strategy. And that's what you've seen us do with Amazon.
It strikes me that — so there's essentially two or three LLMs that dominate the market, and there are just a ton of media companies that they're crawling, I would argue hijacking their information. Would the Times be open to either participating in or leading a coalition similar to what the music artists have done that demands or speaks with one voice? One of the flaws I see in the ecosystem, Meredith, is that each media company has a tendency to overestimate its importance in the ecosystem, recognizing that no one company is indispensable for Alphabet or Meta or, in this case, OpenAI. It strikes me that — and I remember arguing this 20 years ago at the Times — that you shouldn't go it alone. You might get 10 or 20 or $50 million, so one of the LLMs or companies can brag, put out a press release saying that they have a licensing agreement with the New York Times Company, but isn't part of the problem that companies, including the Post, the Times, Condé Nast, you know, name all these media companies, newspapers, that you guys just don't play well together, and as a result haven't created a coalition to push back on big tech, which has absorbed so much of the market capitalization and attention that used to be the domain of those traditional media companies? Quite frankly, I'm saying this as an ecosystem that you're part of. Aren't you guys the perfect enemy? And that is, you don't get along and form coalitions.
The first thing I want to say is I think everyone running a business doing high-quality independent journalism, doing original journalism, thinks of the other companies doing that sort of first as in the same pursuit, and thinks about protecting that pursuit. And I want to say, as it relates to the enforcement of our intellectual property rights, we, you know, we have taken the actions we've taken to benefit the Times, but we've also taken them because we think we've got a really strong — we've got a really strong story in terms of how much intellectual property we have, how long we've been doing it, how much of it is copyrighted. And we think that that is quite important to how things go from here. And we thought we had a big opportunity to do something here that was important for the Times, but also important for journalism more broadly, and important for society in terms of, you know, there being a continuously sustainable model for high-quality independent journalism. And by the way, over time, probably important for the LLMs, because the LLMs need high-quality information sort of coursing through their models as well for the models to actually be good. So that's the first thing I would say. And then I would also say, if you look at the issues that kind of animate collective interest in the industry — and I mean sort of small-c collective — we are all, many, many of us, are focused on the protection of, you know, the rights and safety of our journalists, and we go at that together. When America was leaving Afghanistan, the Times worked with a number of news organizations who you would consider close competitors to help get people — journalists and the people who supported them for 20 years — safely out of Afghanistan. And when we think about defending the rights of journalists to do their work in an unfettered way, you see a lot of support coming out from other organizations. So I don't totally agree with you on the characterization of, you know, we're such enemies that we can't do things together. And even having said all that, I do think that every company's intellectual property rights really matter, and companies should be in a position to control how their content is used, and I think individual companies having that control really, really matters.
Okay. So, Paramount Studios, Warner Brothers Pictures, New Line Cinema, DC Studios, Miramax, CBS, The CW, CNN, HBO, TNT, truTV, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Discovery Channel, HGTV — bear with me — Food Network, Travel Channel, Animal Planet, TLC, Investigation Discovery, Science Channel, and the Oprah Winfrey Network, and the Magnolia Network, in addition to Paramount+, HBO Max, Discovery+, CBS Sports, TNT Sports, Bleacher Report, CBS News, CNN, CNN en Español, HLN — I'm almost done here — CNN International, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount International Channels, and then a variety of production companies are all about to be under the control of one family, the Ellisons. Your thoughts?
I wondered where you were going with that. Listen, I don't have much to say. You know, I run this company, and I've been doing that for —
You're an iconic leader. What would you say to the FTC and the DOJ right now? You think this is good for the media ecosystem to have all these brands under the control of one family?
Look, I think I care a lot about work that is kind of first human-made, creative, expressive work that drives our culture, and that includes news, and it includes the work of all the companies you just named. And I am for whatever conditions are going to allow that work to flourish. You know, what the control structures are, who sits at the top of them — I'm sort of, you know, not spending a whole lot of time thinking about that. I do, you know, I do care a lot about news in particular in that context, and I am for a very healthy market of other news competitors. And I think that's good for the Times, good for journalism, obviously good for the public.
I'm not sure what to take from that. Does this consolidation worry you, or you just think it kind of plays out the way it plays out?
I think what I'm really saying is I have not spent a whole lot of time thinking about, nor is it my work to think about, how that will affect the Times' business. I am intently focused on how the Times can keep hiring journalists, deploying those journalists in ways that help them get to the best work, and making the other extraordinary lifestyle products we make. And, you know, that's where my focus is. I'm sure there are other people at the Times, including our media reporters, who will have a lot more to say about that.
We'll be right back after a quick break.
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We're back with more from Meredith. One of the things I use AI for the most is — I don't use it to write. I find that, you know, I thought my next book I would just put in a very thoughtful prompt and boom, I'd have my next —
Get a book out of it, right?
Yeah. It's not — and it isn't panning out that way. I find that so far it's kind of all ship, no salsa — that there's no real voice there. It sounds like what it is, and that a computer wrote it. But at the same time, I do use it a lot for editing and for fact-checking. If you were to estimate what employment or the number of people will be, not only just the New York Times newsroom, but other big newsrooms — do you think AI — what do you think the impact of AI is? Because I have generally found that it does — while it doesn't replace the written word or your ability to write, it does in fact increase efficiency. What are you thinking in the back of your head? Look, what is the size of the newsroom right now? Where do you see it in two or three years?
So, 2,300 people in the kind of core newsroom working on what you think of as coming from the New York Times proper, and then 3,000 total, including the 500-plus journalists at The Athletic and the journalists working at Wirecutter and Cooking and so forth. So roughly 3,000 people. Let me say, I feel very strongly — and again, I run a public company and I say this to everyone who will listen — I don't think the sort of core, you know, the work at the essence of what journalism is meant to do, and sports journalism, and shopping advice, and high-quality recipes, and even the production of games — I think that's like first and foremost a human endeavor, you know, by humans for humans. And I'll just say I don't think people talk enough about the idea that, you know, what is it that journalists do? Reporters go out into the world, and with expertise in the domain that they're covering, they unearth new facts, and they, you know, work with editors to make sure they do that in as full a way as possible. And then they, you know, they bear witness to things, sometimes in very difficult circumstances. They bear witness to important things that are happening that the public should know about, and then they translate that with sensitivity and judgment and a very careful professional process in a way that's meant to get people to understanding. And you've got human beings in all parts of that equation. And I certainly think that technology, including AI, will help make parts of that — to your point about what's going to help you write your book — it will help make parts of that go better, maybe be more efficient, but I don't think it replaces the sort of thing at the core that we're doing. That is certainly true for high-quality independent journalism. I think it is also true when you think about sports journalism. You know, are you going to send a bot into a locker room to talk to a team that's, you know, just not made the tournament because they didn't win their conference? Or, you know, I think we're starting to see what recipes made by AI that have not been sort of tasted and tested by chefs do. And I could go on and on across the New York Times portfolio. So I have real confidence that we'll find ways, as we always have, to use technology to make aspects of the work even richer or more efficient, and maybe give time back to the human journalists doing the things I've just described. But I absolutely do not believe there will be wholesale replacement.
If the New York Times Company were to be credited with any huge strategic transformation — the company has a market cap of 8 to 9 billion, which is pretty substantial. The stock performance has been strong. What you're doing about it looks like 200 to $250 million a month in subscription revenue, and 75% of your revenues come from subscription. I would just — if I put myself into your head, it's like, okay, subscription, subscription, subscription revenue. And what do you find really drives, gets people to subscribe and not churn? And two, when you look forward, what new channels — and I'm going to assume you know, continue to invest in a world-class newsroom. All right, let's assume that's a given. You have 10 million digital subscribers. At some point you're going to have to have a board deck that says this is how we get to 15 million in the next five to seven years. What are the areas and what type of new content do you think will drive incremental subscriptions?
Let me start by saying we are playing in really big spaces already where hundreds of millions of people spend time, and that's news broadly defined. And I always caution people to say news is not just kind of war and politics. It's science-backed health and wellness, and it's culture, and it's lifestyle, and it's how we live today, and so many other things — it's tech, it's so many things. It's what will the impact of AI be on companies and jobs. So news is a really big thing that has persistent demand, and there's kind of nothing else like it in terms of bringing in new audiences every day, especially in big news moments. So that's a giant space. And then let's go through the other spaces. Sports. Scott, I think you're a sports fan. I do listen to you, and I think you're a sports fan. We've got the largest sports newsroom on earth with The Athletic. We're, you know, more than 500 journalists covering every major team and league in the United States and European football, and sort of growing into a number of other things. Sports is a giant category. We are in really early days. We've been in The Athletic for four years. So lots of running room there. We've got 11 games now. Tens of millions of people play some of our games every single day. You know, games have done extraordinary things for the Times. And I would just say, you know, we had crosswords and The Mini and Spelling Bee, and then we acquired Wordle, and then after we acquired Wordle, we made Connections and Strands, which are two of our biggest games, and we've just put out two new games. We've got Pips, and now we've got our first multiplayer game in Crossplay. So like, that is an engine where there's still tons of running room, and that keeps giving. And I often say, you know, Wirecutter — the shopping advice that Wirecutter does, you know, human-tested product reviews where there's like a professional process that goes into how do you pick — this is the right thing if you want the less expensive version, this is the right thing if you're willing to pay more for it. And Cooking, you know, 25,000 human-tasted, tested recipes. I would say, Scott, for growth in every one of those areas, we see real running room. And often the work is how do we prioritize to get to the biggest things first, but I could tell you in every single one of those products, there are kind of ample places for more growth. And then I'll just say all of those products are getting more visual. They're getting multimodal. They're getting more sort of video-oriented. And you and I both know that you just listed off a huge number of companies that mostly work in television or video. They make things that people watch. And the more we can make the Times into something that is, across the portfolio, as preferred for watching as it is for reading and listening, I think the more growth we can have.
So I was with a TV producer this weekend, and they said that the chill — that the FTC's aggressive actions against media companies, and the president constantly interfering and issuing statements that this company should go away or this company should succeed, or the Secretary of War or the Department of War stating that, you know, picking favorites, saying that the Ellisons are doing a great job and others aren't. And this producer said that the chill has been pretty dramatic, and that everything they do now has to go through vastly more legal checks. And quite frankly, there's some things where they choose different words for fear that they're going to be sued by the Trump administration or be intimidated. Have you found — do you sense this chill at the Times?
Short answer: the Times is not being chilled or cowed or in any way, shape, or form coming off of the work of, you know, pursuing the truth wherever it may lead, even when that is to an uncomfortable place for a subject, for some part of the audience. Period. My longer answer is the encroachments on the independence of news outlets is, you know, it's awful. It's awful for the news outlets. It's awful for society. You know, why does the Times cover the actions of the Pentagon and the military? Because it is our job to help the public hold power to account, and to help the public understand if the country is going to war, or if a series of geopolitical actions are being taken. What is the context for those actions? What are we to know about them? That is, you know, we do that work not in service to our own interest. We do it for the public, as do other news outlets. And I think any encroachment on that, anything that makes it more difficult for journalists to unearth facts and get them to the public, is really problematic. And I think the thing that doesn't get talked about enough is, you know, press freedom has been something — it's not a left-right issue. It's something that has enjoyed bipartisan support in this country for many, many years. And I think we have gone from a time when there was real institutional sort of reinforcement of the importance of a free press, even from leaders who most definitely didn't like the way that they were covered — I think we've gone from that to having leaders and institutions actually do work to sow doubt in the press. That's why a lot of these actions are happening, for their own interests, and I think it's terrible for the country.
