Q4 2024 New York Times Co Earnings Call
Good morning and welcome to the New York Times Company's fourth quarter and full year 2024 earnings conference call.
All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference operator by pressing star and zero.
After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star and then 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and 2.
Please also note today's event is being recorded.
Speaker Change: At this time, I'd like to turn the floor over to Anthony DiClemente, Senior Vice President, Vestal Relations. Please go ahead.
Speaker Change: Thank you and welcome to the New York Times Company's fourth quarter and full year 2024 earnings conference call. On the call today we have Meredith Kopit Levien, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Will Bardeen, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.
Speaker Change: Before we begin, I would like to remind you that management will make forward-looking statements during the course of this call.
Speaker Change: These statements are based on our current expectations and assumptions, which may change over time. Our actual results could differ materially due to a number of risks and uncertainties that are described in the company's 2023-10-K and subsequent SEC filings.
Speaker Change: In addition, our presentation will include non-GAAP financial measures, and we have provided
Speaker Change: reconciliations to the most comparable gap measures in our earnings press release which is available
Speaker Change: In addition to our earnings press release, we have also posted a slide presentation relating to our results on our website at investors.nytco.com.
And finally...
Speaker Change: Please note that a copy of the prepared remarks from this morning's call will be posted to our investor website shortly after we conclude. With that, I will turn the call over to Meredith.
Thanks, Anthony, and good morning, everyone.
Meredith: The fourth quarter kept another strong year for the times in which we make further progress toward becoming the essential subscription for every curious person seeking to understand and engage with the world.
In 2024, we added over 1.1 million digital subscribers.
Meredith: putting us further on the path to our next milestone of 15 million total subscribers.
Meredith: Digital subscription revenue, the largest engine of our growth, increased 14 percent.
Meredith: and we delivered consistently high subscriber engagement in news and across the portfolio, which contributed to strong increases in digital advertising, wire cutter, and licensing.
Meredith: Healthy revenue growth, paired with a disciplined approach to investing, drove higher adjusted operating profit, margin expansion, and increased free cash flow.
Meredith: Our market-leading news and premium lifestyle products proved more valuable to more people in 2024.
Meredith: That was evident in high engagement across the portfolio, which fueled our multi-revenue stream model and enhanced our durability, even in a dynamic information ecosystem.
Meredith: So we begin 2025 with real momentum, which gives us confidence that we can deliver another year of healthy growth in subscribers, revenue, and profitability, as well as robust free cash flow.
Meredith: I'll turn now to our results in the fourth quarter. We added 350,000 net new digital subscribers in the quarter. Digital subscriber revenue growth accelerated to 16%, driven by increases in both subscribers and ARPU.
Meredith: Our bundle continued to be a major engine of subscriber additions and is well on its way to becoming a majority of the subscriber base.
Meredith: Bundle growth was propelled by our news product and also each part of our lifestyle portfolio, which is a key element of our strategy in action.
Meredith: Each part of our portfolio also contributed to digital advertising revenue in Q4, which was up 9.5%.
Meredith: This was particularly true of games and the athletic, where we have strategically expanded ad supply.
Meredith: We also benefited from continued enhancements to our ad products and the growing sophistication of our targeting capabilities, such as our AI-powered brand match.
Meredith: These results demonstrate the effectiveness of our ad products and the value of our diversified portfolio to marketers, and we deliver them even as some advertisers continue to avoid hard news topics.
Meredith: Revenue beyond subscriptions and advertising increased meaningfully. Wirecutter had another great quarter, including its best Cyber Week sales period ever, driven by new coverage areas, format expansion, and deeper engagement.
Meredith: Finally, AOP grew and margins expanded even as we continued to invest in our strategic areas for growth, namely our world-class journalism and premium product experiences.
Meredith: Before I close, I'll share some reflections on the year we just finished and our priorities for further growth from here.
Meredith: This year, we'll build on what we accomplished in 2024, which was a standout year for The Times in terms of delivering value to our users.
Meredith: Despite a challenged and changing ecosystem, The Times grew its audience in 2024 and once again ranked first among digital news destinations in time spent per visitor.
Meredith: Our world-class news coverage led on the biggest stories, from the election to AI, to the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.
and we significantly evolved every product in our portfolio.
Meredith: We relaunched our Core News app with expanded surface area for discovery and engagement. We released a new version of our award-winning Games app to much success.
Meredith: We continued to expand national sports coverage on The Athletic and also made it easier to follow the teams you love. And we enriched the cooking experience with more easy-to-make recipes.
and short form video.
Meredith: As a result, our journalism and products were more essential and more relevant than ever before. Tens of millions of people came to the Times every week to understand the world, play our games, follow the teams they love, figure out what to make for dinner, and shop smarter.
Meredith: Our goal for 2025 is to deliver value at even greater scale and to be so distinctive that even more people seek us out directly and build daily habits with us. To that end, here's where we'll focus.
First, we'll continue to comprehensively cover the most important stories.
Meredith: From the new administration to the economy, from the rapid evolution of AI to the impact of a changing climate, with a world-class team of expert journalists and the deep reporting, independence, and ambition the Times is known for.
Second.
will keep adding and innovating in video and audio.
to make our reporting more accessible to more people.
Meredith: Last year, one in three visitors to our homepages watched video, and over half of our news report was listenable via AI-powered automated voice.
Meredith: In 2025, we'll go further with multi-format journalism and give people more ways to discover and get immersed in the times.
Meredith: Third, we're focused on making each of our products more valuable to more people and have a robust pipeline of new content, shows, features, games, and other enhancements in store for 2025.
Meredith: And finally, all of that is meant to drive a larger engaged audience for The Times, with a particular focus this year on growing the engaged prospect pool for each of our products.
We believe those priorities.
Meredith: expert journalism delivered in more formats and increasingly valuable product experiences that appeal to larger audiences are the way to inspire millions more people to build a direct
Meredith: daily habit with us. And strong execution in each of these areas is how we expect to create a larger and more profitable company.
Will Bardeen: With that, I'll turn it over to Will for further details on the quarter.
Will Bardeen: Thanks Meredith and good morning everyone. In 2024 we build strong results including another year of healthy revenue growth, AOP growth, margin expansion and strong free cash flow generation.
Will Bardeen: As Merida said, we continue to grow our subscriber base over the course of the year, adding 1.1 million digital subscribers, while also delivering strong subscriber engagement, along with ARPU increases.
Will Bardeen: This led to an increase of approximately 14% in digital subscription revenues and helped power growth across our multiple revenue streams.
Will Bardeen: We grew overall revenue in the full year by approximately 7% as growth in digital subscription, digital advertising, affiliate, and licensing was partially offset by ongoing decline in print.
Will Bardeen: These healthy revenue results, coupled with our disciplined approach to cost growth here, drove operating leverage.
Will Bardeen: AOP grew by approximately 17% year-over-year in 2024 to $455 million and AOP margin expanded by approximately 150 basis points to 17.6%.
Will Bardeen: We deliver these results even as we continue to prioritize strategic investments aimed at further differentiating our high-quality journalism and digital products.
Will Bardeen: Due to our capital efficient model, a large majority of our AOP converts to free cash flow.
Will Bardeen: We generated approximately $381 million in free cash flow in 2024.
Will Bardeen: Over that same period, we returned approximately $168 million to shareholders.
Will Bardeen: It's included approximately 85 million dollars in sharing purchases and approximately 83 million dollars in dividends
Will Bardeen: Consistent with our capital allocation strategy, today we announced an increase in the quarterly dividend from $0.13 to $0.18, as well as a new share repurchase authorization of $350 million.
Will Bardeen: Now I'll discuss the fourth quarter's key results, followed by our financial outlook for the first quarter of 2025.
Will Bardeen: Please note that all comparisons are to the prior year period and must otherwise specify.
I'll start with the discussion of our subscription business.
Will Bardeen: We added approximately 350,000 net new digital subscribers in the quarter, bringing our total number of subscribers to 11.4 million, with growth coming from multiple products across our portfolio.
Will Bardeen: Bundle and multiproduct subscribers now make up approximately 48% of our total subscribers, well along the path to exceeding 50% by the end of next year.
Will Bardeen: Total digital only ARPU grew 4.4% to $9.65 as we continue to step up subscribers from promotional to higher prices and raise prices on tenured non-bundled subscribers.
Will Bardeen: The value we've added to our products combined with the encouraging results we're seeing at pricing step-up points
Will Bardeen: gives us confidence in the continued strength of our ARPA trajectory.
Will Bardeen: As a result of both higher digital subscribers and digital-only ARPU in the fourth quarter, digital-only subscription revenue came in at the high end of the guidance ratings we provided last quarter, going approximately 16% to $335 million.
Will Bardeen: Total subscription revenues grew approximately 8% to $467 million, which was in line with the guidance we provided last quarter.
Now turning to advertising.
Will Bardeen: Total advertising revenues for the quarter were $165 million, an increase of approximately 1%.
Digital advertising revenue increased approximately 9.5% to $118 million.
Will Bardeen: Other revenues outperformed in the quarter, increasing approximately 16% to $95 million as Wirecutter affiliate revenues and licensing revenues continued to perform well.
Will Bardeen: Adjusted operating costs from 6.5% in the quarter. This was slightly above our 5 to 6% guidance range as we opportunistically increased marketing investment during a period of high expected ROI.
Will Bardeen: Looking at each of the lines, cost of revenue increased approximately 5 percent, sales and marketing costs increased approximately 21 percent, product development costs increased approximately 6 percent, and adjusted G&A costs decreased approximately 1 percent.
Will Bardeen: Adjusted diluted EPS in Q4 increased 10 cents to 80 cents.
primarily driven by higher operating process and higher interest income.
Will Bardeen: I'll now look ahead to Q1 for the Consolidated New York Times Company.
Will Bardeen: Digital-only subscription revenues are expected to increase 14 to 17 percent compared with the first quarter of 2024, and total subscription revenues are expected to increase 7 to 10 percent.
Other revenues are expected to increase mid-single digits.
Will Bardeen: Adjusted operating costs are expected to increase 5-6% as we continue to invest in our high-quality journalism and digital product portfolio to add value for our audience while maintaining a disciplined approach to costs.
Will Bardeen: In summary, our strong economic results in 2024 demonstrate our essential subscription strategy is working as designed.
Meredith: The strategic priorities for the coming year that Meredith highlighted are all aimed at building a larger and more engaged audience over time.
growing our subscriber base and powering our multiple revenue streams.
Meredith: In 2025, we expect healthy growth in revenues and AOP, as well as continued margin expansion and strong free cash flow generation. We remain on the path to achieving our midterm targets for subscribers, AOP growth, and capital returns.
With that, we're happy to take your questions.
Meredith: Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now begin the question and answer session.
Meredith: To ask a question, you may press star and then 1 on your touchtone phones. If you are using a speakerphone, we do ask that you please pick up your handset prior to pressing the keys to ensure the best sound quality.
To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two.
Meredith: Again, that is star and then one to join the question queue.
will pause momentarily to assemble the roster.
Speaker Change: Our first question today comes from Benjamin Thoth from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead with your question.
Speaker Change: Yeah, good morning everyone. Thanks for the question. So as you mentioned you had an analyst day a couple years ago where you provided multi-year guidance. Now in 2025, we're entering that window.
Speaker Change: You've obviously accomplished a lot over the past few years, and the entire landscape has evolved. So I was hoping you could reflect a bit on how the business has changed, and how we should be thinking about those long-term targets, and then I have a follow-up.
Speaker Change: Hi, Benjamin. Thanks for the question. I'm happy to start, and Will, you should feel free to add anything.
Speaker Change: I will say first that we have a lot of confidence in our strategy to be the essential subscription. We feel strongly that that strategy is...
Speaker Change: kind of working, you know, as designed. And I think you see that in the results and in the forward outlook that Will and I have both attempted to paint a picture up here for 2025. I think we are
Speaker Change: sort of existing and delivering on that strategy in a really dynamic and kind of
Speaker Change: rapidly evolving ecosystem and I think the idea that we are first and most
focused on building
Speaker Change: News coverage and products that are so good that people seek them out and you know ask for them by name and make
Speaker Change: room for them in their lives is the thing that's making us resilient. Even in that dynamic ecosystem, you're seeing that play through in, you know, consistently strong engagement.
across our portfolio and in the revenue that that enables.
Speaker Change: you know, in digital subscriptions and advertising and affiliate and licensing.
Speaker Change: So we feel very confident about where we are and where we're going, and believe we're going to continue to be building a larger and more profitable company, but feel free to add anything I may have missed there.
Speaker Change: I think the only thing to say based on the question is given the
Speaker Change: success of the strategy so far and our confidence and the priorities that Meredith laid out. We believe we're on the path to achieving our midterm targets as previously stated for subscribers, AFT growth, and capital returns.
Speaker Change: Great. And then for the bundle product you saw ARPU inflect to positive growth this quarter. It's a big milestone. Do you anticipate that bundle ARPU can grow sustainably from here or will it vary depending on the cadence of sub growth and the promos you're running?
Speaker Change: Yeah, I can take that. I mean, I think that I always say when you ask about, you know, one of those specific categories, the best metric to watch is really total digital-only R2. You know, having said that, we're really pleased with how the bundle step-ups are going. You know, that's been the primary driver of that increase.
Speaker Change: in Bundle Multi-Product Arc that you're seeing, and that really just reflects the strategy in action as we steadily improve the journalism and the products.
Speaker Change: people are engaging more, and they're placing a higher value on the service, on the bundle in particular, as you noted, which is
Speaker Change: you know, been strong and we expect to continue to be the case. And then that strengthens our ability to transition subs to higher prices over time and gives us confidence that we can have a stronger trajectory going forward. So there's nothing I would say to
Speaker Change: you know to call out one way or the other just that we continue to have a lot of confidence and strength of the of the multi-product ARPU and just our ARPU trajectory overall.
Speaker Change: Thanks for the questions, Ben. Operator, we'll take our next question, please.
Speaker Change: Our next question comes from Thomas Yeh from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead with your question.
Thomas Yeh: Thanks. Good morning. Meredith, you mentioned your focus on growing the engaged pool across verticals. Is that a top-of-funnel comment on registered users, and how does that translate into the different types of investments, whether that's more content or tech or maybe a different approach to marketing? And then dovetailing that with...
Speaker Change: The marketing expense in the quarter maybe for well, I noticed the sequential step up on paid media expenses
Speaker Change: Can you dig a bit into the nature of your philosophy around ROI expectations on performance marketing and how we should think about the timing of when you might realize the ROI on that? Thank you.
Yeah, thanks Thomas. That's a great question.
I think.
Speaker Change: The best way to answer what you're asking is we feel like there's real running room in every direction of the portfolio to grow engaged audience and to get more people into a direct relationship with the New York Times and to have a
Speaker Change: a multi-day habit with us. And I'll just touch on how we intend to do that in each part of the portfolio. In news, it's really about continuing the...
Speaker Change: employ the world's best journalists and deploy them on the biggest and most important stories. What's changing in our ability to do that is that we can do it now in more and more formats.
Speaker Change: Last year was a very big year for us in terms of more video and audio, and you'll see us continue that in 2025, and I, you know, I think that's
Speaker Change: and is self-evident if you use our products, but you can expect a lot more of that.
Speaker Change: from us in 2025, and that to your question about sort of where in the funnel is that, I think that makes
Speaker Change: you know, times journalism, appealing to more people. So, top of the bundle, and it makes them more engaged, middle of the bundle. So, we see that really in news. In games, we've got a robust pipeline for both feature development on the games we already have, and also a very good track record now of building new games and games.
Speaker Change: are also great in every part of the funnel. So they bring a lot of new people to us, but they're very habit-forming, also probably self-evident. So I'd say their running room in all parts of the portfolio.
Speaker Change: sports. We continue to be early. It is a huge market. We've been pleased, you know, all year long with with
Speaker Change: and the Athletics audience. You can expect us to continue to be very focused there. I'd say maybe even more than in the other products on top of funnel, making sure people know the Athletics exist.
Speaker Change: and, you know, is a great reason to come to the Times. So very good progress there so far and a lot more to come. And then I'll just say, you know, shouldn't count out cooking and Wirecutter and even our podcast.
Speaker Change: and sort of ability to get at people through what they listen to. So, running room in every direction, and specifically to your question, at the top of the funnel, in the middle of the funnel, and of course, we're always very focused on subscriber engagement and getting people to stay, you know, pay more overtime, stay longer.
And Thomas, I can take the media investment question.
Speaker Change: We were pleased in the quarter that that increase in year-over-year investment, pleased with the role that that played in the quarter and has been playing overall. I always want to step back when I talk about the media investment and just remind
Speaker Change: to remind you and everyone else that the significant majority of our subscribers start to come organically. That's the core of the model and we continue to believe it will be
Speaker Change: given all the targeted strategic investments we've made and continue to make into the journalism of product development.
regarding the media investment specifically.
Speaker Change: But, as we've always said, we consider leaning in when we see opportunities, given what's happening for a variety of factors in the market, to take advantage of really attractive ROI. So, that's what was reflected in today's report.
Speaker Change: , , , , , , , , , , ,
And in terms of timing and realization,
Speaker Change: you know having given sort of specifics on that but needless to say it's not going to be.
Speaker Change: longevity of our experience with the model. We have a lot of confidence.
in our ability to set people up and
Speaker Change: and just the overall value of the product leading to price and power over time. We have a lot of confidence in our LTV models.
Speaker Change: to give us a sense of that expected ROI is real. So I'll leave it there for now.
Will Bardeen: Great. Thanks so much, Thomas. Operator, let's go to our next question, please.
Speaker Change: Our next question comes from David Karnofsky from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead with your question.
David Karnofsky: Hey, thanks. With digital ads, Meredith wanted to see if you could just expand on the rollout on lifestyle products to date. Curious how, you know, visible those ads are, say, on athletic and games relative to
David Karnofsky: what you would see on news. And then I think growth has largely come from increasing programmatic supply. Should we think of that as the driver ahead?
David Karnofsky: And then just a separate question, your cash and securities balance is approaching a billion, you know, assuming no further change in capital allocation, you know, how do we kind of think about the optionality here? Is there, you know, potential for M&A, for instance, that we should be thinking about? Any kind would be great, thanks.
Yeah
Speaker Change: I'll do the first question, I'll do a little bit on the second question and see if Will wants to...
Speaker Change: add anything. On digital advertising, it's a good year in digital advertising and we are excited about the new year we've entered in part for the reason you're pressing on. We continue to feel like there's
Speaker Change: More supply ahead to roll out, and I would say, it's not just a supply story, there's real demand.
Speaker Change: for our lifestyle products. I think marketers like working with the times. We have a
Speaker Change: you know a great audience broadly for the enterprise news and our lifestyle products and we now have
Speaker Change: very effective ad products that you know we've got you know years of experience and first-party data and targeting we've got this great new AI product and brand match and we have these big beautiful canvases
Speaker Change: in news and across the portfolio that we're still rolling out. As far as sort of what's ahead, I would say more supply to come on games, more places where you'll see us.
Speaker Change: have had experiences, and in sports, I'll just go, I think.
Speaker Change: In my answer to Thomas's question, I'll say we still have a very big opportunity with the athletic to build audience and awareness and get people just to engage with the product at all. We kind of love where we are with that, and there's a lot.
Speaker Change: still ahead and as the audience grows on the athletic, it's not perfectly linear, but you can imagine advertising growth to continue there as well as a result of that. On your precise question of should we expect it to be more programmatic, I would regard
Speaker Change: programmatic is like a method for buying. You know we are we and we are absolutely seeing growth and improvement in the way we execute programmatically but I'd say the opportunity is in both direct sold and programmatic. The multi-product portfolio gives us a lot of opportunity to work with marketers and kind of creative ways.
Speaker Change: So, you know, the sort of strength of the products that the breadth of the portfolio gives us, you know, optionality and lots of opportunity in both directions.
Speaker Change: direct and programmatic. So that's my answer on advertising. Just very broadly, thinking about the balance sheet, and you, I think, used the word kind of optionality. Yeah, I do think it gives us a lot of opportunity. We're in a, I said this in the answer to Ben's question, we're existing in a
very dynamic ecosystem. I think there's
Will Bardeen: still lots of change to come in that ecosystem. We have a very clear strategy. We're very well positioned, but we like, you know, we like the optionality the balance sheet gives us in that context. So, Will, I don't know if you want to say more about that. I just might add a few things, which is
Will Bardeen: Our philosophy here is all part of a very disciplined approach to capital allocation which we've laid out. It might be just worth recalling that here. Our top priority is always to continue.
Will Bardeen: high return organic investment into our central subscription strategy to really continue to grow into that opportunity. And then after that, we intend to return at least 50% of our free cash flow to shareholders of the midterm.
Will Bardeen: Just noting the announcement today of the five cent increase to the quarterly dividend as well as the new repurchase authorization of $350 million in addition to the approximately $155 million.
William
is left on our prior authorization is enabling us to
Will Bardeen: make sure that we're delivering on that strategy. Part of the strategic optionality is...
Speaker Change: is at least 50% going forward. And then, to the point Meredith made, having that optionality at this time of dynamic change.
Speaker Change: You know, M&A is always something we consider. I want to reiterate that we have a really high bar for that. You know, in the past, you've seen us with, whether it's Wirecutter, Hortal, or The Athletic, the opportunities align with brand.
Speaker Change: have to accelerate the strategy and provide a very attractive risk-adjusted return on investor capital.
Speaker Change: Great. Thanks a lot, David. Operator, we'll take our next question, please.
Speaker Change: Our next question comes from Kaka Maral from Evercore ISI. Please go ahead with your question.
Kaka Maral: Thanks for taking the questions. I wanted to follow up on the engagement front and was hoping you could expand on the strength you called out earlier. Maybe you could unpack the trends you're seeing, particularly post-election. It seems like we're perennially in unprecedented times and presumably this adds to the value of your products, but perhaps you could help us think about the opportunities you see with the...
Speaker Change: current dynamics and how it shapes your efforts to continue pushing the bundle and perhaps this year lean more into modernization. Thank you
Yeah, thanks for the question. I would say, you know...
Speaker Change: Generally, engagement on prospects and subscribers is sort of a high.
Speaker Change: have been consistently strong and have lots of opportunity to build that engagement in every part of the portfolio. I think that's one of the things that makes
Speaker Change: the Times very unique. I'd say we are bullish that there is persistent demand for what we do journalistically. I feel, you know, very confident.
Speaker Change: that the investments we've continued to make in our coverage engine and in format innovation are really enabling us to meet the moment.
Speaker Change: you know, a new administration in Washington, but well beyond that, you know, the AI story, you know, we
had, you know, lots and lots of coverage about ZikZik.
Speaker Change: ever it might come from. So we've got this incredible roster of habit forming games and we've got a ton of running room in sports.
for the passionate fan and even the less passionate fan
Speaker Change: stories in sports, and same for cooking and wire cutters. So we, you know, have a lot of optimism about our ability to consistently engage people and find new ways to do that, even in a changing market.
Great. Thanks, Cutcon. Operator, next question, please.
Speaker Change: Our next question comes from Vasili Karasaya from Cannonball Research. Please go ahead with your question.
Vasili Karasaya: Thank you. Good morning. Meredith, I wanted to follow up on your comments about advertising revenue.
Vasili Karasaya: and ask you this, obviously you have a lot of engaged audience and impressions for sale. And the press release calls out display as the main driver of advertising, digital advertising revenue growth.
Vasili Karasaya: Do you see any opportunities for other formats like video, for example, that would allow you to charge higher CPM, probably step up growth in that revenue line, and if you could share with us.
Vasili Karasaya: what you think opportunities are and what you're working on. That would be great. Thank you.
Vasili Karasaya: Yeah, thanks for the question, Vasili. I would say that we see a lot of opportunity everywhere in advertising.
I hope you call out.
Vasili Karasaya: CPM in general. We've got a business where I do the CPMs.
Vasili Karasaya: have been consistently strong. You know, we don't get into detail there, but we've got a high-value ad product set.
Vasili Karasaya: And particularly on the direct sold side, and we are a majority direct sold business, we have been, you know, I've been in and around this business for a very long time, we have have been able to maintain high CPM. So, I'd say even the sort of broader display canvases.
Vasili Karasaya: are strong from a CPM standpoint, and we will continue to make those products
Vasili Karasaya: performance for marketers with data that gets better and better. And our ability to target in sort of steadily improving ways helps keep CPM strong. And I would just say there's a lot of running room there on just making sure those display canvases are still valuable. You asked about video. I think you see us taking those display canvases.
Vasili Karasaya: and experimenting more aggressively with different formats that in some cases include
Vasili Karasaya: video. And then I would say audio has continued to be a very important part of the ad proposition at The Times. And there, you know, we, obviously there's podcasts.
Vasili Karasaya: advertising but I think we're still there's still quite a bit of format innovation come in audio advertising so you know virtually any space
Vasili Karasaya: that you can imagine digital advertising playing in as to format. You can regard the times as experimenting with. And the last thing I'll say is.
Vasili Karasaya: We've got this really unique sort of complementary product portfolio where people come and do different things. So,
Vasili Karasaya: watching a recipe be made, playing a game, reading a news or sports story, or listening to a news or sports story. Those are very different activities, and I would say the ads that go with those things can be pretty varied as a result.
Great. Thanks, Cecily. Operator, let's take one last question.
Speaker Change: And our final question comes from Doug Arthur from Uber Research Partners. Please go ahead with your question.
Doug Arthur: Yeah, good morning. Will, just leaning into your answer on the media expense line item, I mean, when you talk about
Speaker Change: opportunity did you see like a sudden surge in traffic to the site and so you stepped on the gas I mean what sort of the chicken in the egg there
I appreciate why you're asking the question.
Speaker Change: The dynamics in any given quarter that we're playing in, there are a lot of dynamics going on that impact.
Speaker Change: and certainly the market in which we're doing the paid acquisition as well. So we don't really like to kind of speculate on specific dynamics. I think the key thing to say is we have a team that is
You're really focused.
Speaker Change: every day, every week, on really looking at how we're performing, the ROI on our investment. And so we're constantly looking at that. We're willing to.
Speaker Change: to put more investment in when we see really attractive returns developing. And just the same, we're being quick to pull out if we see the opposite happening. And I think what we see reflected.
Speaker Change: in that investment in Q4 was a view that we had some real opportunity there and we wanted to take advantage of it.
Speaker Change: Great. We want to thank everyone for joining us this morning for our earnings call and we'll talk to you again next quarter.
Speaker Change: And ladies and gentlemen, with that, we'll conclude today's conference call and presentation. We do thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.