The New York Times records a 26.7% drop in advertising revenue

The New York Times registered a drop of 26.7% in advertising revenue last year. In the last quarter of the year, The NYT had a drop of 37.9% in print advertising, and digital advertising revenue decreased 2.3%.

The numbers are negative for advertising. but the subscription revenue offset the drop in advertising in 2020, so the year was positive for The New York Times.

The company justifies the drop in digital advertising as a result of lower creative services revenues, which were partially offset by higher direct-sold and open market programmatic advertising.

The New York Times digital ad revenue was $260,454 in 2019, and $228,594 in 2020, a drop of 12.2% year over year.

One advertising area that is growing is audio, where the ad revenue was up $7 million from the prior year. The New York Times reached $36 million in podcast advertising revenue last year.