The New York Times has become the rare publisher proving that subscriptions and advertising can strengthen each other. Chief Advertising Officer Joy Robins explains how a subscriber-first model creates the engagement, trust, and data that fuel a thriving ad business. She also discusses how the Times’ bundle — from Games to The Athletic to Cooking — opened new surface areas for news-averse marketers, and why video is the big test for the NYT as it strives to become the Netflix of news.

This episode is presented by Beehiiv.

I wanna tell you a little bit about a company that is doing something really impressive

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They're a crypto media company that runs seven daily newsletters.

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When Block Works started using Beehiiv.

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Welcome to the Rebooting Show.

we have a series of good conversations coming up as we close out the year.

I think we can say close out the year.

It's already, it's only like six weeks out.

Later this week, I'll have a conversation that I held, as part of A TRB Live

last week with, Luke Bradley Jones, Luke's the President of the Economist.

one thing that stood out to me during that interview was that the Economist did a project

where they imagined the media landscape in five years and how the brand would thrive in it.

I think a lot of people should be doing that exercise.

I also have conversations coming up with Isaac Saul, the CEO of Tangle,

which is a really fascinating.

independent news publisher that seeks to give both sides to very fraught political issues.

I have another one with Josh Schnapps of Schnapps Media about how you make local news, a sustainable

business and, Ramen, beheshti of caliber, and I spoke about making news for Gen Z. have a

bunch of other good conversations coming up.

Always like to hear your feedback.

my email is brian@therebooting.com.

On this week's episode, I spoke to Joy Robbins.

Joy is the chief advertising officer at the New York Times.

The Times has been something of a star pupil of the class.

Making a decisive move to focus on reader revenue.

at a time when most news publishers were still focused on traffic, it has built a formidable

business that aspires really to be more like Netflix for liberals than a newspaper.

Joy and I discuss how the focus on subscriptions has turned out to be a benefit to its ad business.

Why, the times bundle of lifestyle products is critical to offering news

wary advertisers, attractive alternatives.

And whether, display advertising has been a complete failure, as I pause it.

and finally why the watch tab, in the New York Times app is so critical that

it is holding off on fully monetizing it.

Hope you enjoy this conversation with Joy.

I.

Joy, thanks for joining me on the podcast.

I think we lasted it in person several years ago.

Back when in person was the thing to do.

I wanna go back to it.

I wanna go.

We should do it in person again.

there's, there's advantages to both.

let's get started.

I mean, the New York Times, you, you guys are the sort of envy of a lot of publishers.

You know, when I, when I talk with them, I was talking with one publisher

a couple weeks ago who was, who has like a very subscriptions heavy model.

And this, this person who's the CRO, there was like, it's so much better.

It's so much better.

so the New York Times is, you know, subscriptions first, and you know, the, the

mission is described as to become the essential subscription for every curious person seeking

to understand and engage with the world.

it has been very successful at, at getting some 11 million people to, to become paying subscribers.

it's over 12 now.

Oh, is it over 12?

Sorry.

so talk to me about the role that advertising plays.

'cause I can remember, you know, it's a shift that takes place when you start to focus

on subscriptions and the initial feeling.

A lot of times it used to be that this, that these things are counter to each other.

If you're going to.

You're gonna put friction up, to get people to pay.

You're gonna have a smaller audience.

And a smaller audience means a smaller advertising business.

on the other hand, when you have a subscription business, you, the

quality of your audience is higher.

And we saw that in the traffic era.

A lot of people had a fairly flimsy audience, that they got from, from various, platforms.

and you have a lot more data.

So tell me about how, and you guys, the, the advertising business is, is growing.

Right.

It's back to, to growing.

So tell me about how subscription or how advertising fits in with a subscription

focused model and why they don't.

These two things don't work against each other.

Sure.

I think it's a great question and a great place to start.

I think first and foremost, I'd say advertising is an essential part of the New York Times' business.

and thing about a subscriptions first business and even a business that is both.

Subscriptions and advertising.

Both of those things happen downstream from audience engagement, right?

So the thing that we have to make sure we are doing as a company is creating journalism

and product so good that people seek them out by name, create direct relationships,

and ultimately pay for that experience.

But through that, we are really focused on building engaged relationships with our audiences.

That means a much stronger ad business.

for all of the reasons that you just listed.

We have a lot more signal, we have, relationships and frequency with these readers.

but I'd also say it makes us relentlessly focused on our product, our user experience,

and the excellence that both of those represent.

And that's really important to marketers too.

They wanna be.

Where, you know, user experiences and trust is really high.

So I think that everything it requires to build a subscription first business ultimately

is in service of a stronger ad business.

And that's not to say that there aren't.

I mean, I think, I believe that you can have a strong subscription

business and a strong ad business.

There are not, not trade-offs.

Right.

And I think that knowing that, you know, there is friction that needs to be in place, in appropriate

places, you know, is, is, is just part of that.

But I will also say the audience of the New York Times is bigger than it's ever been.

you know, 50 to a hundred million people are coming to us every single week.

And so that's also, so we, we obviously have a very strong ad business given

all of the engagement that we have.

From our subscribers and our registered users.

but also we are producing journalism and products that tens of millions of people are coming

to every single day, and that matters too.

Yeah, and so you're, the ad business is still based on scale.

To some degree, I mean in that like you have scaled audiences like, I mean,

there's a lot of publishers who have seen their headline audience number.

Shrink like quite a bit, you know, for some of them, I mean, because they're

incredibly reliant on, for instance, Google traffic, which has become, a lot

less reliable in many, in many areas.

And so they've seen just, you know, their audiences go down by 30, 40%.

you guys don't have that.

that dynamic.

And so I'm wondering like, but you're able to go to the market and say, not only is

this a premium environment, not only do we have a lot more data on, on, on these people,

but we're kind of like a scaled option.

So I, I feel like the New York Times is, is the exception to a lot of rules to be honest with

It's funny, I've been listening.

I've been listening to you know, your last few episodes, and I think.

You've talked about scale, not necessarily being as important, and I think the New York Times has

the benefit of being able to play in both worlds.

you know, we've spent the better part of a decade deeply investing and making sure

we have direct relationships so people are coming directly to our products.

At the same time.

So yes, we are able to reach massive scale, whether it be through our homepage, which

is one of the most premium products I'd say that we have to offer advertisers,

or, you know, a games takeover where you can reach, again, tens of millions.

So, so we can achieve scale pretty quickly.

but, and we can also target pretty specifically, so our.

First party data allows us to get into really segmented audiences where if you

don't want, if an advertiser isn't looking for mass reach, but they're looking for

really specific audiences in business or in style or, it, or its sports enthusiasts,

we can target pretty, precisely as well.

So it does give us that best of both worlds, opportunity for, for marketers.

Yeah, and I think one of the, the hallmarks of the New York Times strategy

has been going beyond news like so for.

For many years, like I probably going back like a long time and people have been complaining about

like the screenshot industrial complex forever.

It was like, oh, we saw this ad next to some horrible news event and.

Someone's like, how did this happen?

as if there's, there's worse things out there in the world.

but like the New York Times has diversified quite a bit from just the core news product.

Okay?

The core news product is still the core, right?

But you've got games, you've got cooking, you've got wire cutter, you've got the

athletic, you've got different surfaces, right?

How important is that in the ad business?

I don't suppose you're, you're gonna tell me how you break, how you break it out, but I'm sure

that there is a percentage of your ad business that is not going to the core news product.

And just to be clear, I mean the core news report, which is, you know, is, includes Gaza.

I don't mean fashion, I don't mean tea style, nothing against them.

I think they're wonderful.

But like, you know what I mean?

Like there, there's always been this idea that advertising is not, doesn't mix well with news.

Has that always been the idea though, Brian?

Like would you say that it has been a long standing, or do you feel as

though that has become something that's been more of the narrative in the last

Well, I mean, I, you know, since we're, we're all conspiracy curious these days,

like, I think that, you know, as, as the brand safety, companies have gotten larger,

the conversation around brand safety has.

Surprisingly gotten bigger and how brand safety has been applied has perhaps not

been as finely tuned as it should be.

well look, we could have an entire episode if we could have an.

it.

entire episode, I think, debating that and, and un undercover and maybe we should one day.

but look, I think, you know, the dynamic between news and our lifestyle products

that you described is like core to the essential subscription strategy that we

launched, you know, four, four years ago.

You know, we wanna be the best news destination in the world.

We wanna.

Build market life's market leading lifestyle products that help people make the most of

their lives and their passions, and we wanna create a more expansive and connected product

experience to get both of those together so people can really experience the totality

of what the New York Times has to offer in terms of what that means for the ad market.

Look, I think news is incredibly important to the Times because I think it really helps.

Our brand and reputation, and it is why marketers have been so excited to work with New York Times

Cooking and Wirecutter and New York Times games, and even the Athletic, because while those are

in very big spaces with broad marketer appeal.

It is also because they come from the New York Times.

So that credibility of the New York Times extends itself into our lifestyle products that

are, yes, helping us attract more advertisers than we would have with just news alone.

And I know that, you know, you're saying news should only have credit

for, you know, politics or war.

Some of the things that advertisers are more skittish to be around, but I'd actually really.

Argue with that because I think that it is why advertisers have written off news as a via, as

a, as a place for them to be because they don't appreciate how broadly defined news actually is.

And so there are plenty of advertisers that we work with who want to stay away

from politics and war, but do find the real value of the readers who are coming in for.

Style or culture or you know, science backed health and wellness content or

our technology and business coverage.

So, I mean, I think that the lifestyle products have helped us create new funnels for new

kinds of advertisers who may have never thought about the New York Times as a place they'd

want to put their brand in the same way, our lifestyle products has also helped us.

Increase our total addressable market for subscribers.

So you know, it's helping us bring on new types of advertisers, and in some cases

we can bring those advertisers in through something like wire cutter or cooking, who

would not have thought about ever wanting to be in news, and those advertisers are then.

running in some of our, you know, business or technology or culture

coverage and seeing real improvements and increases in their overall performance.

So it's like it gives us new entry points, for how brands can work with us rather than,

I think what had traditionally been the really finite set when categories of advertisers that

just are thought of as being, relevant to news.

So what categories then are, are being opened up?

Because I mean, last, not this just recent quarter, but the previous quarter had,

had attributed the rise in, I think there was 18.7% increase, in ad revenue from new

advertising supply in areas of strong marketer.

Demand was, was how it was put.

What are those?

Yep.

Yeah, I mean I think there's two things in that because I do think it's worth saying that we

have all of these lifestyle products that up until, you know, for the athletic, two and a

half years ago for games just about two years ago for Wirecutter, just they didn't have any ads.

so we've opened up ad supply and ad opportunities and that has helped us grow and.

We have also been able to mature some of these new lifestyle products to be more relevant to

the advertisers in those specific categories.

So there are sports budgets that some advertisers have that are completely

separate from budgets that, You know, we would have had access into in the past.

so now we actually have an opportunity to take more share because we have more relevant

passion points that fulfill where advertisers are looking to, to show up more cultural

relevance, because that's a thing that we're hearing a lot from marketers, that they

want to be in the cultural conversation.

They want to be around cultural moments.

And because of the way that we now have this really.

Robust portfolio, were more relevant for those moments than ever.

So it's allowed us to go into categories that were maybe more consumer led that may have not

spent in the traditional news sector before.

But now, you know, through cooking and through wire cutter and through, again, sports and games

were a lot more, attractive and opportunistic for, for some of those CPG or retail based clients.

Okay.

And is this like, is the growth mostly in like brand focus advertising?

I know obviously there's like bleeding into it, but I think the big question for publishers

is so much of the market has shifted to performance, and I don't like the, the, the

platforms have built better mouse traps.

They have, they have better data.

They have, you know, they have massive, customer bases.

I mean, they, Or user bases.

And they have massive customer bases, like they're made for direct marketing.

I wrote about direct marketing.

They, they call it performance, but it's direct marketing.

They're made for that stuff.

really difficult for publishers to compete head to head on on that kind of performance when it

comes to just feeding money into the platforms.

So what is the pitch to advertisers?

About why to spend on in the New York Times environment from a performance standpoint,

or do you just focus mostly on advertisers that want to be part of, you know, a softer

kind of be part of a cultural conversation and, and that part of advertising, which is,

don't get me wrong, is incredibly important.

And I think that maybe brands are waking up to the fact that like not everything can

be performance and there's a limit to that.

I mean, believe it or not, it's like weird.

but like, how do you, how do you think about that?

Like, I mean, because I, I assume that like, again, the New York Times is unique

in that, I don't think it ha it can, it can compete on, on, on a lot of different levels

that where a lot of publishers simply can.

But do you try to compete on performance as well as brand?

I mean, the first thing I'll say is I believe there's a lot of headroom in the brand space.

You know, we've been able to, Grow pretty significantly in our digital

ad businesses year without video.

So I would say, you know, and as we build, and I know we'll probably talk about that, but as

we build more and more video like experiences, there's a lot of headroom in, in the brand space.

I would also agree with you to say the times is audience and our depth and our ability

to target does put us in a category of one.

in terms of yes, we can do all of the things that.

Are the best parts of working with trusted premium publishers when it comes to brand.

And we also have an opportunity to be able to more granularly target.

We have a shopping platform that is wire cutter that drove a billion

dollars in commerce last year.

So, you know, we have an opportunity to be both in a way that I don't think.

Many other media companies can accomplish.

You know, I think one of the things, there was a study that Kantar just did of 21,000

consumers across the world to understand how adver, how, you know, advertising lands

with them and their receptivity to it.

across, you know, media at large and the New York Times actually ranked first among

US consumers for advertising receptivity.

Ahead of Amazon, ahead of Apple tv, ahead of Netflix, and ahead of x. so, so we have the

data from studies like that, that demonstrate that what readers, listeners, viewers see on

the New York Times influence what they buy.

And we're increasingly building products and measurement capabilities

that are going to help us, better.

Reflect that to marketers.

you know, if you, if, if you take it like kind of up a bit, we know that when the New York

Times covers a restaurant or a destination through 52 places, the amount of attention and

business that goes that way is pretty striking.

I mean, I've been on vacation.

I've told someone I worked for the New York Times and they'd be like, oh my God, you know,

when you guys wrote about this restaurant, it, it, you know, it was impossible to get

it could be a bad thing.

I, I, I was going, I, there's a place in Italy, we gone on vacation

and it got the 48 hours treatment.

I was like, oh, no.

Uhhuh, but it moves markets, right?

Like New York Times coverage has a massive amount of influence.

And so, you know, you apply that to you, you that extends to the advertising.

And so I think that, you know, we can be a place for both and, and I want to be a

place where brands can see they can, yes.

Come to us with brand message, but also at the very least, build a deep

consideration layer with what we're doing

Well, let's talk about how you do that.

'cause you mentioned video and like, I think we first talked when you were at Quartz, right?

And I think like about Quartz, like really focusing on brand and trying to make, I mean

honestly like I really feel like the internet has failed at brand advertising, right?

Like the only thing that has worked is video, right?

And like Quartz was trying to come up with a different, flavor.

Display and display has been like, honestly, from my standpoint, I'm not selling display ads.

It's been a failure.

Like display advertising on the internet has been a failure at this point.

It's never gonna work.

the best ad units in the internet are absolutely not display advertising.

Their search advertising, they are, like Instagram ads.

Amazing.

Amazing ads.

and they're basically Netflix, right?

Like, I mean, some kind of like connected TV or something like that.

Tell me if I'm wrong here, but to

I, I, I would take a different view.

Keep going.

I, I, I keep, keep going.

I like the provocative.

I like the provocative view.

I smear, the reputation of banner ads,

Of, of display.

Come on, keep going.

I didn't call them banner ads, it could have been worse.

and so.

You gotta get, you gotta, you, I, I, it seems very clear like the New York Times Next Act, I mean, we

talked about this on my other podcast yesterday.

It's like, you know, Troy was going on about like, the New York Times trying is gonna be

CNN before CNN can be the New York Times.

And I think that's an easy one.

But like, you know, like the, you guys are, are.

Clearly emphasizing video in the app and for a bunch of different reasons,

you're adding a watch tab to that app.

It, to me it seems pretty clear that the, the, the strategy is an everything

app for, an every like, lifestyle app.

Like it's got news, it's got, you know, video and the, the video that you guys are doing.

I, it, it seems to me it's, it's a str strategic priority as it happens, brands like video.

I've been told, so I don't think you're gonna break out how much of your ad revenue is video

advertising, but I would guess that video is a major part of, of the growth trajectory.

so there's so much to.

No, that's a long

To, to, to unpick in all of that?

I mean, I would say first and foremost, I think display advertising

that is completely unstrategic,

not thought of through first the user experience and the environment is

probably, as you described, not effective.

You know, and, and I think back to what Quartz was trying to do with the ad model

that they created that would have focused, and that did focus far more on brand ads.

If you look at what the Times built, probably nearly a decade ago with our

Flex ad suite, it is similar in nature that it happens right in the flow.

It's native to the actual, platform.

And what we've seen is the.

Proprietary ad formats combined with the deep, deep first party data signals

that we have actually does perform and our display business is growing.

and so I would say yes, we

so your display business has grown, so there is still like an appetite for.

yes.

banner ads on web pages, basically.

I mean, I would not put it in, in, in as simply as a banner ad on a webpage.

I think there's a lot more craftsmanship behind what we're doing.

no, but I, I think the display formats are working.

we have launched, several new formats this year, one of which is a carousel

that where you can actually kind of.

Shop through, a few different panes in, in the ad unit.

And yes, we have also prioritized video in that experience and really thought about ways

to make our ads more watchable in the same way the product is becoming more watchable.

but I would say that I. Not team display is useless or inval, you know, it has no

has a

place.

It ha it, it, it has

It does have a place in it.

Yes, it does drive results.

however, brands want video.

That is also true, and I think so.

Do consumers, I mean, you asked about the strategy.

You

Instagram.

Instagram has amazing ads.

Like they're amazing.

Like anyone in publishing, like go and go to Instagram.

And I don't like a lot about Instagram, but the way that ads work on Instagram.

It's the way ads should work.

It is not, it is not how ads work on webpages, in my view.

There's a

Say more.

What is exactly, can

it.

It is.

It, it is within the flow of the media experience.

If the internet, this is my soapbox, the internet was like trying to recreate the

magazine experiences with pages, with webpages, with the ads like it, the people

who came up with the internet ad system.

Were either technologists or there were people from the magazine industry and it got, kind

of got in some ways, a little bit of both.

And the, the page concept works really well within magazines, it's completely integrated.

People get the vogue, you know, they, they would always go through as vogue for the ads as

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

That is, that did not translate to, to webpages.

It simply didn't.

And so, but with video, it works perfectly.

It's not trying to intrude.

You have a hundred percent of attention.

You're think about TikTok, you're going through it, you watch a video, then

all of a sudden you have another video.

And the video is, is, you know, there's a little promoted or sponsored or

advertising on there and it, it works well.

I watch football, I watch and they constantly break it.

And then like I'm sitting through, you know, various CI ads and whatnot and like it works.

And, and so I, I, that's what I wonder about, like video has to be a, a top priority,

particularly it seems like you guys are really focused on under monetizing your video right

now to get people to consume more of it.

Yeah, I mean I think that that brings us to sort of why video, for the times, which

is again, if we are going to reach a widest possible audience and bring people into the

times, we have to make sure that we're doing it in modalities that they are, Predisposed to,

and we know video is obviously one of those.

And so making sure that we're as easy to read as we are to listen to as we are

to watch is gonna be really important to make sure that we can bring in that widest

possible audience and keep them coming back.

So we have doubled viewership, you know, amount of people watching videos on the times.

Over the last year and the watch tab is sort of the next manifestation of making sure, just as we

have a listen tab, we now have a watch tab where you can scroll through, videos from all around

the times, whether that be in news, whether that be in lifestyle, whether that be a clip of Ezra.

you can, you can really watch the times and the point you made about us.

Really downplaying ads, at least you know, to start is that entire watch

tab is really dedicated to making sure that we are, optimizing for engagement.

And once we better understand how that audience engages, we will then think

about what the ad model for it looks like.

The ad model has got to come downstream from engagement.

Just sort of back to where we started on what the benefit of being a subscription first business is.

We are constantly optimizing to make sure that we are first thinking about the engaged audience.

Okay, so, so first it's the get that habit within on the watch tab in, in the app.

And then it's to monetize it.

In the way that it is appropriate and that will not suppress engagement.

But to your point, how are we gonna do that?

I mean, I think what is going to be native to that, format is going to be, you know, video is

going to be video in the same way that you see on the platforms from ads in is, is interstitials.

Gotcha.

yeah, because I mean, people are used to it.

It, it, it works basically at the end of the

and we'll be doing, we'll launch a beta for a few select advertisers

probably in the beginning of next year.

once we really have a better understanding of exactly how audiences are engaging

in making sure we have a critical mass of people who are engaging in that tab.

And do you see this as like a mobile experience or is it to be

an app like on on a TV eventually?

We're starting right now with, you know, I think making sure that the New York Times Core app

is a reflection of all of the best things that you can get from the New York Times on any given day.

and, you know, I can't predict the future of where that necessarily goes, but you

know, we, we wanna make sure that people are seeking us out wherever they are.

Of getting content.

So how are you thinking about direct versus indirect demand?

and by that I mean the programmatic question.

I can remember back at Digiday, we had like stories.

It's like the New York Times is stopping open programmatic and Look, publishers.

I mean, I think this is another, maybe you catch me on Friday, but like a programmatic for the

most part has been a disaster for publishers.

I think we can call it that right now.

Like it just is, has not like really for, for premium publishing.

I don't think it has really been, a, a boon like, to say the least.

I always go back to who has the yachts at can and it's not the publisher.

I think there's a reason for that.

how do you end up explain like how you think of, because look, I mean ultimately like

programmatic is just a form of buying, et cetera.

And if

It's automated buying.

Yeah, your buyers want to transact that way.

They wanna transact that way.

There's a lot of different ways to do programmatic.

It's not all, open programmatic, but where, where is, you know, I'm just like looking around.

I see, I see more, I see more programmatic ads appearing.

how are you thinking about that?

Because there's an amazing pool of demand, obviously, that you're only gonna reach through

these kind of scaled, automated channels.

But at the same time, you want to, you wanna keep the quality high and

you want to, you wanna be premium.

Yes.

Well, I mean like, that's exactly right.

We are focused on premium programmatic.

We are focused on building out our, you know, direct programmatic

relationships as much as possible.

I think.

Like every other piece of the business programmatic should be

looked at as strategic execution.

If you just put your inventory in the open and like let it rip, you're gonna

get exactly what you put in, right?

Like you're gonna get crappy ads, you're gonna get terrible yield.

and so people think of programmatic as just the set it and forget it part of the business.

And I will say the way that we look at that part of the business is.

It is a method with which through which many, many, many advertisers want to

transact, and we should treat it as a channel that, deserves that kind of attention.

And so making sure we have appropriate ad quality, making sure that we are building

products that advertisers can access.

Programmatically that, you know, benefit from the signals that we

are also, you know, able to achieve.

Not all of them.

You know, there is still gonna be a difference between what you are going to be able to

get through the New York Times through a direct relationship versus what you may

be able to get, in A PMP or even more, you know, even further afield, the open market.

But we wanna make sure that, you know, we are attracting quality demand.

investing in what, you know, the bid supply, the decoration looks like, making sure that,

you know, we are appropriately getting, sort of the right advertisers in through that channel.

And so it is a very important part of our business, that I think.

If you only focus on direct advertising, you do miss a good portion of the marketplace.

That, and, and even not just whole advertisers, but whole parts of

advertising budgets that are reserved specifically for those automated channels.

Yeah.

I've always wondered, like over the years, I would always like, I'm gonna have Adam

Ingold on this podcast like in a next month.

Like, and I've always asked him over the years, I was like, when are

you gonna sign the New York Times?

and you know, because a lot of people like to hate on, you know, the bul and operate

and the content recommendation ad networks.

but they're one of the most successful of the open web advertising ecosystem.

I dunno, but you guys have never, I don't know, is, is there, is there ever like a pathway be

that that content recommendation works within a premium environment like the New York Times?

can't say that I can necessarily see the pathway.

I mean the, the thing I'll go back to is what does the user experience look like?

What does the design look like?

Is it premium enough for the times?

And, you know, I don't know that, it would be something we would consider, but,

Never say never.

I mean, I don't know.

You should ask Adam on a Friday.

so the other thing is, is is print, right?

Like so where, 'cause look, I think print still has, has a purpose when you see a

little revival of, in magazines, particularly niche magazines, I'm sure you know.

Print does real well with, you know, with T magazine and print and the newspaper product.

I mean, at some point it's going to, to bottom out.

maybe we haven't like, reached that or maybe it won't.

I think it's still to make a statement with like a full page print ad. I mean, you still need that.

I mean, that, that, that'll still be around.

Yeah.

I mean, look, the newspaper is.

Remains one of our most iconic products.

It's singularly powerful, unique.

It's influential.

It captures, you know, 3 million people.

It still has a very large and loyal audience who really, really value that modality.

and I think, you know, just scroll LinkedIn when advertisers.

Launch full page ads in the New York Times, you actually see them post it, right?

Like there's something about a full page print ad there.

It is a place that we continue to innovate, whether it be the GE execution

that we did a few years back to.

We took over, the New York Times magazine for Cartier last year with just stories about love.

I mean, there, it, it is a. Format where we see a lot of opportunity for innovation

and a lot of opportunity for impact.

I like to talk about a cover wrap of The New York Times as another form of outdoor

advertising because you see it everywhere.

so, you know, look, is a. sort of channel that is in secular decline.

I'm not gonna pretend that it isn't, but I still think that a, the New York Times has

the broadest reach for any newspaper on the planet, and you know, whether it's here in the

US you wanna reach readers or across the world.

and we continue to see really impactful, innovative campaigns coming outta that channel.

And it's a really, really valuable, you know, format for advertisers who are

looking to reach a specific audience.

for sure.

and what is the role of the content studio now, like T Brand Studio, like

I can remember in that like sort of.

Yeah.

Period.

And courts was like, you know, in that like where it's like there was these ad

agency, like things that were being created within publishers and sometimes they won.

Can Lions, i I, you

Yeah.

Yeah.

T Brand has won Cannes Lions.

Yes.

and.

Then kind of like reality sort of set in a little bit that these are lightly,

like a little bit different businesses.

I feel like, like there it's, it's good as a support to an advertising business, but like

getting into the agency business is like, as my fellow podcast host, Alex Schleifer

says, it's like I leave it to publishers to find the second worst business to be in.

but, you know, look, they're different businesses, but like, you know, I think of

like, what is the role now of like, of T brand?

Yeah, T Brand is an exceptionally important part of the overall ad business.

It is differentiating, it is helping our brands still tell stories, in ways that we know resonate

with our readers or our listeners, or our viewers.

It's as we've.

Grown the portfolio.

We have now launched, you know, specific, content formats for the specific brands.

So that's really helped us diversify how we think about T brand.

supporting advertisers with whom we work.

I mean, look, we just launched a podcast last year with L'Oreal group called, this Is Not

a Beauty Podcast, and it actually was at the top of charts in the US and in the UK for

actual just like general interest podcast.

It was hosted by Isabella Rossini.

So, so it is continuing to really be a differentiator for the New

York Times when it comes to.

Products that demonstrate excellence and ways that advertisers can create content or

podcasts or, articles or experiences that, you know, resonate best with that times audience

or athletic audience or cooking audience.

it really, it, it is our center of excellence for creativity on the ad side.

Okay.

so I guess what has changed.

A little bit.

'cause I, I feel like, you know, there was a period where it was like, okay, these are gonna be

like ad agencies, they're gonna like do ad agency.

And then like, it got a little, it felt like it got a little, I'm not saying it was at the times,

but it felt like it got a little further afield.

Like, I can remember having like craft at like one of these digital events and they

were going through their list of agencies and Vice was one of their agencies.

And, and, and I think like media is.

Is a slightly different business and, and it can support a lot of programs.

but being an ad agency is a little bit, is a little

and that's not what T Brand is trying to do.

I mean, I think what you're probably pointing to is, you know, is it profitable to do that kind

of business in the way that you're describing?

And I think what we have found is that a mix of content and media makes.

Those types of businesses far more scalable and sustainable than a pure play.

I'm just gonna be act as your creative shop.

We do plenty of work on behalf of brands, but we have to make sure that we are doing it

again in a way that's sustainable and scalable.

What is the role that events.

Play because there are a lot of your peers who don't have, as, as as big of subscription

business who are like so all in on events and like, you know, they have pivoted hard into them.

And like sometimes I think, well, that makes sense, but at the same

time, like, why didn't you do this?

Like, you know, until now.

And so it's probably out of, you know, desperation to some degree.

how, how do you end up thinking about the events?

As, as part of the ad business.

I would say about our events business is that we're really focused on quality.

Over quantity.

We have two tent pole events that have been years running Climate Forward, which is four,

which was in its fourth or fifth year this year.

And DealBook, which is in its 14th year this year.

And those are Newsmaking events with the most important people on stage and in the room.

and that has been an avenue through which our advertisers.

Can, work with us and it's been successful and it's been growing.

We launched our Well Festival, this year and our Hard Fork Live event this

year as sort of new entrants, but we aren't going for hundreds of events.

We are really trying to think about quality.

Of the event itself, the news, making capabilities of these events, and then

how that attracts the right audience, both on the stage in the room, and then why

advertisers are gonna wanna be a part of that.

we are optimistic.

It is a growing business, but it is not one that we are looking to emphasize quantity.

again, it, it's kind of similar to the way I talked about T Brand.

It isn't just to do it.

To say that that's just another top line revenue stream.

I think we have to think about how it strategically fits into the ad business,

making sure it, again, follows a profitable and sustainable model for the ad business.

And also is something that, you know, frankly attracts audiences to the times.

you know, I, I think there has to be a reason for doing it beyond just advertising.

Right.

so final topic is around ai, like we have to ask.

It's, I'm legally, legally required to ask about ai.

first of all, how are you, how are you using it?

I mean, I, I like, AI is such like a broad term, right?

And I, I know you're using it through targeting, through brand match.

but just walk me through how you see ai, helping and being a useful

tool for the advertising business.

I mean, I think you, you mentioned what we're seeing most readily, which is

through that ad product that we launched called Brand Match about a year ago.

and the thesis behind Brand Match was for a long time advertisers have

contextually targeted as a method.

They have audience targeted as a method, but both of those things are pretty,

Specific in the way that they're formed you.

You can have two advertisers, let's say Chanel and Cartier, who think of

themselves as very, very different.

They think of themselves as having distinct audiences.

They think of their products as having distinct qualities.

But when you looked at the RFPs from both of those advertisers, they were going after the

exact same audience segment and the exact same.

Kind of contextual alignment opportunity.

And so what Brand Match has done is it essentially ingests the brief of an advertiser, understands

what I would call like the essence of the brief, and then it actually displays places across the

times, articles across the times that would be relevant to that brief, as well as identifying new

audiences that would be receptive to this kind of.

Brief or the message that the brand is actually, kind of has as a part of their campaign.

And it's actually helped advertisers find new, effective places to run

beyond, you know, just fashion or travel.

but actually, you know, something that might be in even like the athletic or in cooking that,

you know, really aligns with the, the sort of.

Essence of what the brand stands for or the brand message stands for.

So we've seen, you know, click-through rates increase like plus 30%

over more standard targeting.

We've seen if an advertiser's running a video, we've seen VCR rates increase over 30%.

So like we're, we're definitely finding.

New relevant places for brands to run that they wouldn't have otherwise.

and I think it actually, as we look into 2026, we're really looking to

enhance brand match to be more turnkey.

We're looking for other ways we can utilize generative ai, and our kind of

really large, registered user base to kind of continue to help advertisers target.

How about in the ad sales process?

Like in, like in the background, like, I mean, I've, we had a, a breakfast forum the other, the

other week and, a fellow CRO was talking about, a generative AI tool in order to speed up, you know,

like responses to RFPs like, and, I don't know.

I feel like, you know, the, there's a lot of like unsexy, stuff that goes on at publishers,

that at least in theory, AI should, should help with, you know, 'cause I keep looking

for, I'm like all these, all these billions are going in there that this has to result in

productivity gains and like, there has to be easy pickings within the publishing industry.

I think there's two paths, that we're experimenting with.

I think there's like value creation, so how can we create products that leverage generative AI

to do better targeting and create, outcomes.

And then we think about productivity, gains, which is how do we.

Think about some of those presale prospecting processes or thinking about

how adver, how our sales executives can just find information more easily.

How can we make that experience a bit more agentic so it isn't, Hey, can I, let me Slack.

The Slack channel.

One more time to ask what the specs are.

You know, like there has to be a better way, so, so I think process and productivity gains are

things that we are actively experimenting with.

On the sales side,

Okay, so nothing specific to share on that.

You don't have any sort of gen gen ai, prospecting tool that you, you're rolling out.

No, but I think it's, I mean, we're definitely experimenting with understanding

how it's going to improve upon the process.

I don't think it's completely, you know, it isn't, it isn't replacement.

It is, to your point, there's a lot of rote work that goes on.

How can we make some of that more automated to leave space, to be more creative, to

do more strategic work, that is not just plugging numbers into spreadsheets or, you

know, looking through media radar reports.

So final thing is around the sort of talent driven shows.

I mean, you guys have been very successful on, on podcasting and there's obviously a

lot of energy right now in the sort of quote unquote creator, part of the media ecosystem.

now the times has always been like.

A very institutional brand, and I think it will remain.

That doesn't mean that you don't have your own like talent and stars, et

Yeah, we've got stars.

We love making stars.

but how do you end up thinking about that as, but it's still the times, right?

So like, I mean, you have, there are, there are things that you won't, you

know, it's not like Mr. Beast is, I don't answer us or it's not gonna be Mr.

Beast.

You know, I mean, there's lots of different things that, you know, theoretically

you can do with creators that is not gonna work in, in the New York Times.

But how do you think about that within the advertising strategy of how you.

Leverage, you know, the, the reputation and the influence that talent has in a way that does

work with the New York Times brand and approach.

Yeah, I mean, I think our talent.

Stars, as you call 'em.

You know, it's, it's an extension of the New York Times brand.

They also happen to have some of their own distinct audiences.

So, you know, you think about DealBook and Andrew Ross Sorkin and advertisers

who are looking to reach, you know.

Business executives and C-suite executives.

And so, you know, a million of them are reading DealBook every single morning.

so that is a really distinct place for advertisers to be able to tap into those audiences.

you know, you have Ezra Klein, you now have Ross Doit who's, our conservative podcaster.

you know, you have hard fork, you have modern love, we have a lot

of, personalities, talent with.

Distinct, you know, listenership communities and advertisers have the opportunity to run messages

that reach these very, very, very big audiences.

I think that that's what the times really does bring to the dynamic of, you know, our, our.

Stars or our creators, however, our talent, you know, they come to the times because they

wanna do their best work and the times can give them access to the tens of millions of people

that we're reaching on a daily basis so that their work can see the widest possible audience.

I mean, you look at the daily, you know, eight years running, I think it has something

like 5 billion downloads on, on Spotify.

I mean, that is massive scale and, It is the way that many people have a

relationship with the New York Times.

They think about the New York Times, they think about the daily.

but it is the very vast audience that we can bring into the times that can really

help these shows find their audiences.

And I also think that, you know.

The access that these talents, these shows, these hosts have inside of the New York Times

newsroom, when they need experts to talk about AI or what's happening in the Supreme Court.

it, it sort of also provides them with an opportunity to kind of have access

to these experts in their own newsroom.

I think they all really, take pride in the mission of the New York Times and, and, and sort of our.

Heft when it comes to being experts in, in pretty much every place,

But the, the final thing on that is like, do you, do you see DealBook as a, a

model that can be replicated because it's been.

It's been very successful and it's a little bit of an outlier.

I feel like with a lot of the New York Times approach, you don't see, you know,

I mean, like, Andrew Kins on, on, he's got cnbc, he's got, you know, deal, book.

I don't know how he, he must never sleep.

He just wrote a book too.

I

don't think he does.

He is one of the most impressive people I have ever worked with in my entire career.

Right.

So like I'm wondering, like do you, do you see that kind of, 'cause it's a very valuable

franchise, you know, I mean, as a standalone

It really is.

it would be valuable.

is that like a model that, that, that is, is able to be replicated or is that unique?

I mean, I think that works for DealBook because it is that,

you know, really specific audience.

Andrew does so much cultivating on his own of, you know, his guests and curating that, that program,

he is very, very, very, very hands-on throughout that entire franchise and it makes it excellent.

you know.

I can't, I think every show, every host, each franchise is gonna have its own.

Version of that.

I don't think they all need to be DealBook.

You know, I think the Athletic has several really, popular programs and hosts who convene

and cultivate audiences in their own ways.

I don't think that it's.

I don't, I wouldn't say everyone has to be a deal book.

I think that there is a lot of value to audiences and to the ad market through the, fact that, you

know, each of these shows increasingly have, you know, a very, a very distinct, loyal audience.

Hard fork is another example of, you know, it, it covers wide ranging topics of AI on a

weekly basis in like a very, very deep way.

And when we did Hard Fork live.

Out in San Francisco, we had people lining up outside the door at SF Jazz to, to come in.

So they, they each have their own fan base.

And again, when you have that kind of engaged audience, it is something that creates a lot

of value for the advertising business and, and, and for the, the broader, subscription business.

Okay, cool.

Joy, thanks so much.

Really appreciate you taking time.

Brian, this is really fun.

Thank you so much for having me.

Okay,