Times are tough — as the New York Times’ earnings attest.
Net income tumbled 63 percent for the Times in the fourth quarter, to $65.6 million, from $178.1 million in the year-earlier period. Revenue slipped 5.2 percent to $443.9 million from $468.1 million a year earlier.
But because Wall Street analysts were bracing for an even rockier performance, the stock actually rose 3.3 percent to close at $14.30 in Thursday’s trading.
The company said comparisons were hurt because there were 14 weeks in the quarter a year ago, compared with the standard 13 weeks in the current quarter.
The company said excluding the extra week, its revenue rose an estimated 0.4 percent.
Fourth-quarter print advertising decreased 6.3 percent, and digital advertising dropped 6.5 percent, to $53 million from $56 million a year ago.
For the full year, the company’s net income plunged 52.1 percent, to $65.1 million, although total revenue was off only 1.1 percent to $1.58 billion, compared with $1.6 billion a year earlier.
On the bright side, the company’s digital-only subscriptions, e-readers and replica editions totaled 760,000, a net gain of 33,000 additional subscribers in the fourth quarter, and total circulation revenue on the year rose 3.7 percent, to $824.3 million.
CEO Mark Thompson said that in year-over-year comparisons, ad revenue was down only 1 percent, which he said was “the best quarterly result in more than three years.”
Said Ken Doctor, who writes the Newsonomics blog, “If sustained — and the Times is saying the 1Q ad performance should be like 4Q’s — then the Times would be on a path to get to whole digit revenue increases for the year. We haven’t seen that since the mid-aughts at the Times, and largely in the daily industry.”