Weekly Digest: The Queen’s Death, New Revenue Sources for NYT

Queen Elizabeth’s death has caused people in the UK (and elsewhere) to turn to the news media. As PressGazette notes, “more than one UK national newspaper brand saw their most traffic since the 2020 US election after the news [of the Queen’s death] broke…”

For example, The Guardian’s print circulation was double the expected numbers; website traffic reached as high as 250,000 page views per minute on the day the Queen died. The newspaper’s breaking news story of the event became the most popular standalone news story in its history, PressGazette reports. 

Sky News reached almost 6.5 million people on TV in the first four days following the Queen’s death and 14.2 million unique users on its website, as well as gathered over 150 million video views on social media.

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Belarusian journalist Dzyanis Ivashyn has been sentenced for over 13 years in prison, ostensibly for treason. He has been recognised as a political prisoner by Belarusian human rights organisations.

As RFE /RL reports, “Ivashyn was arrested in March last year by the Belarusian KGB and charged with high treason, though his colleagues say the arrest was connected with his publications about former Ukrainian Berkut members employed by the Belarusian police.”

Ivashyn’s arrest and sentencing is part of a much wider crackdown on free press that ensued in Belarus over the past two years following mass protests over the rigged 2020 presidential election. 

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The New York Times recently launched two new monetisation sources across its vast array of publishing verticals. 

This week, NYT Cooking started selling at-home cooking kits curated by guest chefs. Sold at $95 apiece, the list of kits labelled as coming soon include “Donabe Essentials Kit”, “Caribbean Creole Cuisine Kit” and “Indian Pantry Kit”. As Hollywood Reporter notes, “the venture provides a unique opportunity for the Times to bring in an additional source of revenue outside of subscription”.

Another, and much bigger, source of non-subscription revenue is advertising. While NYT is no stranger to the ad market, this week it first introduced ads on The Athletic, the sports news outlet acquired by the company early this year. As Axios reports, the parent company hopes introducing ads will help The Athletic become profitable within three years, as originally planned. Other revenue lines, such as events and merchandise, are in plans for the future. 

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