(Bloomberg) -- New York Times Co. shares fell Monday after the newspaper publisher reported third-quarter revenue and subscriptions that fell short of analysts’ expectations and the company’s tech workers went on strike the day before the 2024 Presidential Election.
The Times added 260,000 digital subscribers, down from 300,000 in the second quarter. The company now has a total of 11.09 million subscribers, including print and digital, missing forecasts of 11.14 million.
Revenue totaled $640.2 million in the quarter, compared with expectations of $640.9 million.
Times shares were down 7.7% to $52.60 at 11:54 a.m. in New York, the most since February.
The company reported earnings of 45 cents a share, excluding some items. The results exceeded Wall Street estimates of 41 cents a share.
On Monday, the Times Tech Guild, representing software engineers and product managers, went on strike amid ongoing negotiations over a range of issues, including pay increases and return-to-office policies.
The union chose to go on strike ahead of Election Day on Tuesday, one of the busiest days for news coverage. Benjamin Harnett, a principal engineer at the Times and a shop steward in the guild, said in an interview that the engineers spent all year making technical preparations for the election and ensuring that the publication could handle the surge in web traffic.
“We have this big deadline that we’re working towards of getting the New York Times ready to report on the results of the election,” he said. “We attached our own contract deadline to it.”
Times Chief Financial Officer William Bardeen said during the company’s earnings call with analysts that the Times has “a track record of working effectively with unions” and is aiming to reach a new, fair contract. “We’ve known this was a possibility, and have prepared for a range of scenarios,” he said of the labor disruption which in unfolding during a crucial moment of news coverage for the publisher.
“Subscriber engagement, as measured by the share of subscribers visiting the Times each week, reached its highest point since 2020,” Chief Executive Officer Meredith Kopit Levien said during the call.
She pointed to the strength of the company’s games offerings, which include popular options like Wordle and Connections, noting that they “played a big role in getting millions of people to create direct, daily relationships with the Times” and “propelled growth in both subscriptions and advertising.”
Ad revenue reached $118.4 million, versus estimates of $118.7 million.
When asked by an analyst whether “chaos” at the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times — which saw editorial departures and subscription cancellations following the papers’ decisions not to endorse a 2024 presidential candidate — would benefit the Times, Kopit Levien said that they “take no joy in watching any other quality independent journalism institution go through anything difficult” and that the Times was focused on its own strategy.
The Athletic, which was bought by the Times in 2022, posted an adjusted operating profit of $2.6 million versus a loss of $7.9 million in the same quarter a year earlier.
The Times forecast subscription revenues to increase by 7% to 9% in the fourth quarter.
(Updates with union member’s comment starting in)
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