NYT CEO: We Have to Get Back to Ad Growth

The New York Times must halt its digital advertising decline as a priority, says CEO Mark Thompson, even as he launches another paid digital service.

Advertising, which historically has only ever grown since digital media are themselves growing platforms, fell again by a small amount during the publisher's last quarter.

"We are absolutely determined to get digital advertising back to growth," Thompson tells Beet.TV. "We launched our native advertising product back in January - we have a number of contracts already signed - it could build, over time, to be a significant revenue source for us. We will be innovating elsewhere in digital advertising."

Thompson says "custom solutions" like page takeovers and native advertising are "the highest-value inventory" in the NYT's ad arsenal, but "routine banner advertising" is increasingly being sold by programmatic algorithms because "data is king."

Thompson also unveiled an "express," mobile-only news app, NYT Now, due to launch on April 2 at $8 per month.

He was interviewed by Beet.TV at the FT Digital Media Conference.

You can find this post on Beet.TV.