New York Times beats 2Q profit forecasts

Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring costs, came to 9 cents per share.

It’s a milestone in the newspaper industry’s move from print to the Internet, announced by the Times on Thursday morning at the same time it reported second quarter earnings.

A 39-year-old woman has been sentenced to up to 10 years in prison for scamming more than $300,000 from a priest and his former parishioners in northern New York.

In the latest quarter, advertising revenue fell 5.5 per cent to $US148.6 million, led by a 13 per cent decrease in print advertising.

Shares of the company, which also forecast a decline in its current-quarter ad revenue, fell as much as 6 percent on Thursday.

Analysts on average had expected a profit of 11 cents per share and revenue of $383.5 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The company’s shares closed at $3.05. New York Times said it had 1 million paid digital-only subscribers as of July 30.

“Our Company’s digital progress continued in the second quarter, with double-digit year-over-year growth in both digital advertising and digital subscription revenue”, President and CEO Mark Thompson said in a statement.

But digital subscriptions are obviously the company’s source of growth. Digital ad sales, up 14.2% year-over-year, now make up 33% of the company’s total advertising revenues. Street is looking for third-quarter revenue drop of 0.1 percent to $364.43 million.

Total operating costs declined 4.9 percent to $344.8 million, mainly due to print distribution efficiencies as well as declines in depreciation and amortization, raw materials costs and outside printing expenses. “We believe that no other news organization has achieved digital subscriber numbers like ours or comparable digital subscription revenue”.

“Expense management will remain a top priority as we head into the second half of 2015, although our emphasis on digital investment and execution is also more intense than ever”.