NY Times to Launch International Initiatives

The New York Times Thursday announced a $50 million investment in an international digital expansion. NYT Global, a new team headed up by Joe Kahn on the editorial side and Stephen Dunbar-Johnson on the business side, will focus on developing a series of new sites in several languages and growing their audience abroad.

The move comes at a time when U.S. papers, especially major metros like The Times, are looking to leverage anything they can to boost revenues and offset steep print advertising and circulation losses.

“The difficult U.S. newspaper environment has driven the industry to hunt for new audiences,” Gordon Borrell, president and CEO of ad tracking firm Borrell Associates, tells Media Life.

And The Times has an advantage over many of its international rivals.

It has an excellent digital product. Its U.S. site draws more than 50 million visitors per month, according to comScore, and it now has more digital-only subscribers than print ones.

“While they’ve had a decent overseas audience (about 220,000 subscribers for the International Times), there’s much more to be gained abroad, especially if papers like LeMonde or The Times of London aren’t keeping pace with the demands of digital readers,” says Borrell.

“The NYT could steal some of their readership, as well as that of other newspapers.”

According to Media Life magazine, The Times set a goal last October of doubling digital revenue by 2020. At the time, it said it would be targeting younger readers as well as those outside the United States.

The Times has long competed with The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times to be the national newspaper of record.