The New York Times Co. (NYSE: NYT) reported Q3 EPS of $0.12, $0.02 better than the analyst estimate of $0.10. Revenue for the quarter came in at $428.5 million versus the consensus estimate of $429.14 million.

Mark Thompson, president and chief executive officer, The New York Times Company, said, “Q3 2019 was our best ever third quarter for new digital news subscriptions, the fourth best quarter in the history of our pay model and a very encouraging quarter for the company as a whole. We now have more than three million subscriptions to our digital news product, more than four million total digital subscriptions, and 4.9 million total subscriptions. We’re on track to hit 10 million subscriptions by 2025 and now believe at least 2 million of those will come from markets outside the United States. As of the end of the third quarter, we had more than 500,000 international subscriptions.

“In Q3 we made a significant change to our pay model. Most anonymous users now have to register and log in to The New York Times if they want to read more than a very limited number of stories. It’s much easier for us to encourage these logged-in users to engage more deeply with our content and consider subscribing. This was an important factor in the strong net subscription adds in the quarter. Encouragingly, it has not so far led to any appreciable loss of overall unique users.

“Like other publishers, we’re seeing continued turbulence in the digital advertising space. While digital advertising performed slightly better in Q3 than we had originally forecasted, we expect a fairly challenging fourth quarter, largely due to comparisons to a very successful Q4 of 2018. We remain confident in our strategy, which has a particular focus now on major advertising relationships like the recently announced multi-year deal with Verizon, one of the largest commercial agreements in our history, and on new advertising opportunities like podcasting, where we are seeing spectacular growth.”

Outlook

Total subscription revenues in the fourth quarter of 2019 are expected to increase in the low- to mid-single digits compared with the fourth quarter of 2018, with digital-only subscription revenue expected to increase in the mid-teens.

Total advertising revenues in the fourth quarter of 2019 are expected to decline in the mid-teens compared with the fourth quarter of 2018, with digital advertising revenue also expected to decrease in the mid-teens.

Other revenues in the fourth quarter of 2019 are expected to increase approximately 25 percent to 30 percent compared with the fourth quarter of 2018.

Operating costs and adjusted operating costs in the fourth quarter of 2019 are expected to increase in the low-single digits compared with the fourth quarter of 2018 as a result of continued investment in the drivers of digital subscription growth, which are expected to be offset by other savings. Operating costs and adjusted operating costs are expected to return to higher levels of growth in 2020 with continued investment into the digital subscription strategy.

The Company expects the following on a pre-tax basis in 2019:

• Depreciation and amortization: $60 million to $65 million,
• Interest expense and other, net: approximately $3 million, and
• Capital expenditures: approximately $50 million.

For earnings history and earnings-related data on The New York Times Co. (NYT) click here.