New York Times Co. Posts $88 Million Loss, Citing About.com Write-Down

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/27/business/media/the-new-york-times-co-posts-a-loss.html

The New York Times Company reported a second-quarter loss on Thursday because of a write-down in the value of About.com and continuing declines in print and digital advertising revenue.

The net loss was $88.1 million, or 60 cents a share, compared with a net loss of $119.7 million, or 79 cents a share, in the period a year earlier, when the company wrote down the value of its regional newspapers, which it later sold.

Increases in circulation and digital subscriptions contributed to a 0.6 percent increase in revenue, to $515.2 million. But a $194.7 million write-down of About.com, the online resource guide the company bought in 2005, weighed on profits. The Times Company had an operating loss of $143.6 million in the quarter ended June 24, compared with an operating profit of $31.5 million in the period a year earlier.

Advertising revenue at the company’s News Media Group, which includes The Times, The International Herald Tribune and The Boston Globe, fell 6.6 percent, to $220 million. Print advertising revenue fell 8 percent, in part because of continued weakness in real estate advertising. Online advertising revenue at the news media group declined 1.6 percent, to $52.6 million, despite a push in video and other efforts to bring new advertisers to NYTimes.com.

Circulation revenue at the News Media Group rose 8.3 percent, to $233 million, in part because of a price increase in home-delivery subscriptions and single-copy sales of The Times put in place last January and the continued growth of online subscription plans.

In March the company adopted a new approach to the year-old online subscription program that paid off in the second quarter. Readers must now pay for access to NYTimes.com after reading 10 free articles a month, down from a threshold of 20 free articles that was established when the subscription program was introduced.

Paid digital subscribers to the Web site, e-reader and other digital editions of The Times and The Herald Tribune were up 12 percent, to 509,000, at the end of the second quarter from 454,000 in March. Paid subscribers to The Globe’s e-reader and replica editions and BostonGlobe.com were up about 28 percent, to 23,000 subscribers.