Full Transcript: New York Times Q2 2026 Earnings Call

New York Times (NYSE: NYT ) held its second-quarter earnings conference call on Wednesday. Below is the complete transcript from the call. APIs provide real-time access to earnings call transcripts and financial data. Visit to learn more.

Access the full call at Summary The New York Times Company reported a strong second quarter, with consolidated revenues growing 11% and digital subscription revenues increasing by 16%. 4 million, with digital advertising revenues up 21%. Strategic initiatives included expanding video content, enhancing digital product features, and focusing on engaging current and new audiences through innovative formats. Future guidance projects continued growth in digital subscription revenues (12%-15%) and digital advertising revenues (mid to high teens) for Q3 2026.

Management emphasized resilience against declining traffic from tech platforms and highlighted ongoing investments in video journalism as a key growth area. Full Transcript OPERATOR Good morning and welcome to the New York Times Company second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero.

After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Anthony DiClemente, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Anthony DiClemente, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations Thank you and welcome to the New York Times Company's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. On the call today we have Meredith Kopit Levien, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Will Bardeen, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

Before we begin, I would like to remind you that we'll be making forward-looking statements, including about our business strategy and performance. Based on our current expectations, our actual results could differ materially due to a number of risks and uncertainties described in the company's 10-K and subsequent SEC filings. com. And with that, I will turn the call over to Meredith.

Meredith Kopit Levien, President and Chief Executive Officer Thanks, Anthony, and good morning, everyone. Q2 was a great quarter for the Times. Our world-class journalism and premium lifestyle content continued to draw large audiences and power strong, strong results for the company. This was a quarter where we made substantial progress against all of our priorities for the year.

First, we continued to cover the world's most important stories, from politics to pop culture, from wildfires to wellness. Journalists around the globe reported on the ongoing conflict in the Strait of Hormuz, escalating drone warfare between Ukraine and Russia, and the rapid advances in powerful AI models. , a historic heat wave in Europe, and an epic few weeks in New York that saw the Knicks win their first championship in over 50 years and Taylor Swift tie the knot with Travis Kelce. Second, we presented our journalism and lifestyle products in all the ways people want to engage with them, including video.

We're now producing thousands of new videos each quarter to reach the enormous audience for video in all the places people watch, including our own destinations. Just this week we launched a Shows tab in our flagship app, creating a new way to experience our long-form franchises in news, opinion, culture, and lifestyle. The Shows tab complements our existing Watch tab and the expanding volume of short-form video across the report. This is all part of our strategy to engage the people we already have more and engage more people.

As we do that, we intend to make the Times as preferred a brand for watching the news as it is for reading and listening. Third, we continue to add value in every part of our portfolio. We began to make a series of upgrades to our flagship news app, where we see strong subscriber engagement, with the aim of making the app a more compelling experience for prospective subscribers.

We also launched new listening and commenting features in our flagship news app, made Cooking a better companion for home cooks with a new Cook Mode, launched new features to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Wordle and its consistently strong audience, and continue to add features to Crosswords Play with its growing community of engaged players. The Athletic's approach to the World Cup represents how these three priorities come together to drive increasing value for audiences. The world's attention was on the games and we delivered journalism and experiences like no one else could.

Over 70 soccer experts from a 550-person sports newsroom covered the most interesting athletes, moments, and stories from the tournament across 16 cities. We introduced new formats, including a daily long-form World Cup show on Amazon and daily short-form recaps on social and in our app. And we provided live updates and insights for all 104 games and popular interactive brackets that helped fans predict what would happen next. All of this led to The Athletic's biggest audiences ever, and we expect these advances to power success in the NFL season and beyond.

Now let me highlight a few results from the quarter. Digital subscription revenues grew 16% as we continued to become even more essential to even more people. 4 million and keeping us on track to our next milestone of 15 million and beyond. In advertising, both digital and total advertising growth once again exceeded our expectations, with digital advertising up 21%.

This was the result of a clear strategy, capable execution, strong marketer demand, and high engagement. Affiliate, licensing, and other revenues also grew in the quarter. We continued to manage costs even as we invest into generational opportunities. Making long-term bets—video among them—is how we expect to maintain and extend our strong market position and continue building a larger, more profitable company for the long term.

I'll close by noting that we delivered our Q2 results against the backdrop of a rapidly changing information ecosystem shaped by a small number of big tech companies whose moves continue to result in less traffic to publishers. The Times isn't immune to that impact, but we have four enduring advantages that we believe give us resilience to these headwinds and also create long-term opportunity. Let me remind you of what those are. First, our products are in giant spaces which deeply engage passionate audiences every day.

In current events, sports, cooking, games, and shopping, we offer the highest-quality, most trustworthy experiences that leave people nourished, not depleted. Second, we're one of an increasingly small number of news organizations that are committed to doing original, independent reporting and high-quality content at scale. While most publishers and broadcasters are doing less of this kind of work, the Times continues to invest. This makes our news coverage and lifestyle products increasingly rare and valuable in an information environment awash in low-quality takes and disinformation.

Third, we have a long track record of using technology to report, tell, and distribute stories in all the ways that people want to engage with them. From text to audio to interactive graphics and video, we deliver information and experiences in the creative ways that make people pay attention. Finally, our multi-revenue-stream model means we have multiple complementary ways to monetize our high audience engagement. Those four advantages taken together mean we're well positioned to continue making the New York Times essential for every person seeking to understand and engage with the world, and to continue to create more value for users, shareholders, and society.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Will. Will Bardeen, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Thanks, Meredith, and good morning, everyone. As Meredith described, our second quarter results reflected strong progress for our business. I'll begin with a discussion of the quarter's key results followed by our financial outlook for the third quarter of 2026.

Please note that all comparisons are to the prior-year period unless otherwise specified. Overall, we saw healthy increases across our multiple revenue streams in Q2, with consolidated revenues growing 11%. AOP grew 16% as we continued to make disciplined investments aimed at further differentiating our high-quality journalism and digital products. Now moving to our subscribers and subscription revenues.

4% year over year to $408 million by the end of Q2. 1% year over year. 7% to approximately $538 million. Both digital-only and total subscription revenues were within the guidance ranges we provided for the quarter.

The growth was driven by multiple products across the portfolio. We continued to be pleased with the increase in our subscriber base in the quarter as well as the performance at our pricing step-up points. We believe this reflects that our audiences appreciate the significant value we're adding to our products. Now turning to advertising.

3%, which beat our expectations. 7% to $114 million. Marketer demand in the quarter for our high-performing ad products exceeded our expectations. 5 million, also beating our expectations.

The outperformance was primarily the result of higher Wirecutter affiliate referral revenues. Adjusted operating costs grew 10%, largely as a result of higher compensation and benefits expenses, which included investments in our video journalism. Cost growth exceeded our guidance range primarily due to incremental variable compensation tied to financial outperformance. Increases in sales and marketing costs in the quarter included both higher marketing and promotion expenses and higher costs associated with our advertising revenues.

As I mentioned at the top, AOP grew 16% in the quarter to approximately $155 million. 69, reflecting 19% growth. We generated approximately $266 million of free cash flow in the first half of the year. Over that same period we returned approximately $160 million to shareholders, consisting of approximately $92 million in share repurchases and approximately $68 million in dividends.

This is consistent with our capital allocation strategy, which includes returning at least 50% of free cash flow to our shareholders over the midterm. I'll note that while our strong free cash flow in the first half primarily reflected our growing AOP and capital-efficient model, it also benefited from timing of seasonal working capital, some of which we expect to reverse in the second half. In addition, as we discussed last quarter, 2026 free cash flow will include a tax-related benefit of approximately $60 million, the majority of which we do not expect to recur beyond fiscal 2026. I'll now look ahead to Q3.

Digital-only subscription revenues are expected to increase 12% to 15% and total subscription revenues are expected to increase 9% to 11%. Digital advertising revenues are expected to increase mid to high teens and total advertising revenues are expected to increase high single to low double digits. Affiliate licensing and other revenues are expected to increase low to mid single digits. This takes into account the timing shift of a marketing promotion by one of our affiliate partners, which occurred in Q2 of this year as compared to last year where that promotion occurred in Q3.

Adjusted operating costs are expected to increase 8% to 9%. We intend to continue operating efficiently while making disciplined investments in our high-quality journalism and digital product experiences that add value for our audiences and help reinforce and expand our competitive advantages. As we've discussed, video in particular remains an important area of strategic investment being reflected in our results and in our guidance. We believe video allows us to have an even greater impact with the journalistic investment we are making by penetrating a large and new addressable market for us.

We are confident in our ability to generate strong returns over the long term as we grow the amount and impact of video journalism in News and across the portfolio. In summary, our strategy continues to work as designed. Our strategic priorities are all aimed at building a larger and more engaged audience over time, growing our subscriber base, empowering our multiple revenue streams. We continue to expect 2026 to be another year of healthy growth in revenues, AOP and strong free cash flow generation.

We also remain on the path to achieving our midterm targets for subscribers, AOP growth and capital returns. With that, we're happy to take your questions. OPERATOR We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone.

If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question today comes from Jason Bazinet with Citi.

Please go ahead. Jason Bazinet, Analyst at Citi Thanks so much. I wonder if I could just ask a question on expenses. You talked about the two drivers of the elevated sales and marketing.

I think you said higher promo and then some costs related to video. Can you just unpack that a bit? Because I feel like your shares have reacted pretty sharply to elevated sales and marketing in the past. I think it's 4Q24 and it ends up being nothing.

It's not like a big structural change in your cost, but I wonder if you can just provide any color about how much of this is sort of temporary versus structural. Will Bardeen, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Yeah, Jason, I'm happy to take that. We were pleased with our sales and marketing performance in Q2 and our approach there remains consistent. So no changes to the approach I mentioned in my remarks.

It's a little different than you characterized it in your question. There are really two different components to highlight there. The first is marketing. The second is actually advertising-related costs.

And so in marketing we continue to drive the majority of our subscription starts, as our model is designed to do, organically behind the strength of our ongoing investment in journalism and product development, and we continue to treat marketing as a useful additional growth lever. It can fluctuate, as you know, quarter to quarter as we continue to approach it with a lot of discipline. We're focused on efficiency and returns, leaning in when the moments call for it — for example, around the World Cup in Q2. Now, beyond marketing in Q2, there was a separate portion of the growth associated with advertising as well.

And that's for a couple of reasons. First, we outperformed our ad revenue expectations in the quarter, which meant a bit higher ad COGS incentive compensation. And then second, this year we staffed a new middle-market ad sales team to access a part of the market that we weren't serving previously, which we see as another promising way to aim to strengthen those long-term growth drivers in advertising. So overall I'd characterize the Q2 results as reflecting our strategy working as designed to help drive healthy revenue growth and AOP growth.

Anthony DiClemente, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations Great. Thanks so much, Jason, for the question. Operator, we'll take our next question, please. P.

Morgan. Please go ahead. P. Morgan Thank you.

Will, on the digital subscription outlook, the 12% to 15% range, that's a bit below where you've operated or guided over the past several quarters. So just in that context, can you speak to any volume, mix, or pricing factors to be aware of? And then, Meredith, maybe relatedly, New York Times isn't immune to broader trends in publishing. We've seen reports of some platforms kind of reconsidering deals with LLMs due to traffic impact.

I know you haven't engaged on these, but just maybe you can give us the lay of the land as you see it right now. Will Bardeen, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Great. I'll start with that digital subscription revenue guide. You know, first to say we're pleased with our overall, you know, over 16% growth of digital subscription Q2.

Underlying that growth, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, was that over 13% year-over-year increase in subscribers over the last 12 months as well as pricing performance, which continued to go well. Now to your question. Sort of looking at Q3, it's, I think, helpful to recall that digital subscription revenue growth can be driven by a variety of factors.