{"id":620980,"date":"2023-03-23T09:49:21","date_gmt":"2023-03-23T14:49:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/23\/in-graphic-detail-publishers-full-year-2022-earnings\/"},"modified":"2023-03-23T09:49:21","modified_gmt":"2023-03-23T14:49:21","slug":"in-graphic-detail-publishers-full-year-2022-earnings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/23\/in-graphic-detail-publishers-full-year-2022-earnings\/","title":{"rendered":"In graphic detail: Publishers\u2019 full year 2022 earnings"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\t\t\t\t
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n

March 21, 2023\u00a0\u00a0\u2022\u00a0\u00a04 min read<\/span> \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 By Kayleigh Barber<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tIvy Liu\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

Publishers\u2019 high hopes for 2022 were brought down to earth about halfway through the year. <\/p>\n

The first revenue stream that felt the impact of the economic downturn was advertising, but by the end of the year, subscriptions began to slow and some publishers reported dips in consumer revenue streams, like affiliate commerce.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

Below are some insights we\u2019ve gathered from six public publishers\u2019 most recent earnings reports, most of which for the full year 2023 (News Corp\u2019s Dow Jones\/WSJ reports on its fiscal year, which runs July 1 \u2013 June 30).<\/p>\n

Revenue comparisons<\/h2>\n

As stated, 2022 wasn\u2019t a boon for most publishers, especially when comparing pro forma revenues for those players that participated in the M&A race in 2021. <\/p>\n

The publishers that experienced decreases in total revenue year over year \u2014 BuzzFeed, Dotdash Meredith and Gannett \u2014 range between 8.2% and 17.9%. This is pretty much the mirror experience to the three publishers that reported year over year growth in their total revenue \u2014 Dow Jones, The Arena Group and The New York Times \u2014 with a range was between 8.1% to 17.7%. In fact, if you take the median year over year change in these six publishers\u2019 total revenue, the industry nets out relatively flat \u2014 up 0.05% from last year\u2019s total revenue.<\/p>\n

This could likely be attributed to both cutting costs measures<\/a> that came in the form of layoffs<\/a> or selling off real estate<\/a>, as well as sales teams bending over backwards<\/a> to keep advertisers happy during yet another economic downturn \u2014 tactics learned during the early months of the pandemic. <\/p>\n

Piece of the pie<\/h2>\n

Comparing to the revenue break downs in 2021, advertising became a slightly smaller portion of publishers\u2019 pies.<\/p>\n

The New York Times\u2019 advertising business lost 2% worth of share, which was absorbed by subscriptions. BuzzFeed\u2019s display and pre-roll advertising business became less than half of its business last year, while its branded content and custom business increased its share by about 5% \u2014 not surprising given how average programmatic CPMs decreased steadily<\/a> in 2022. Dotdash Meredith saw a continued shift toward digital revenue, but print still makes up the lion\u2019s share of the publishers\u2019 revenue in 2022.<\/p>\n

Gannett, however, saw a slight increase in advertising revenue in 2022, while subscriptions dropped slightly. The Arena Group saw its digital advertising business increase by 74%, due primarily to a 47% increase in monthly average page views and a 13% increase in RPM, according to the company\u2019s earnings report<\/a>. What\u2019s more, 80% of the total digital revenue increase was attributed to organic growth, a true outlier in the media industry.<\/p>\n

Subscription slow down<\/h2>\n

Looking at the last couple of quarters of 2022, news publishers saw a slow down in the number of net new subscriptions, seen especially in Gannett and The Wall Street Journal\u2019s businesses. <\/p>\n

There has been an on going return to normality<\/a> following the first year of the pandemic, where readers were paying more for news content and subscription services in general while spending more time in their homes, according to Piano\u2019s evp of strategy and social, Michael Silberman. [Editor\u2019s note: Piano\u00a0is a contracted vendor with\u00a0Digiday.] <\/p>\n

But the current economic downturn also has readers re-balancing their budgets again and getting more bang for their buck<\/a> may be what convinces paying subscribers to renew their subscriptions this year. <\/p>\n

News Corp.\u2019s CEO Robert Thomson said during the company\u2019s latest earnings call that News Corp. will be \u201cincreasing the emphasis on upselling subscriptions with the bundling of Market Watch, the WSJ, IBD and Barron\u2019s,\u201d a strategy that has proven to work for other publishers<\/a>, like The New York Times. <\/p>\n

Commerce comeback<\/h2>\n

After a soft start to the year<\/a>, BuzzFeed\u2019s commerce business ended up rebounding nicely in the fourth quarter, ultimately surpassing 2021\u2019s total revenue of $61.6 million and ending the year at $68.1 million. <\/p>\n

But that Q4 spike in revenue was primarily due to ComplexCon<\/a>, BuzzFeed Inc\u2019s marquee in-person shopping event, which place Nov. 19-20 last year, according to the company\u2019s CFO Felicia DellaFortuna, during its Q4 earnings call.<\/p>\n

BuzzFeed has spent the past couple of years trying to revise its commerce business, launching its BuzzFeed Shopping vertical<\/a> in early 2021, as well as experimenting<\/a> with livestream shopping<\/a> that same year, but as CEO Jonah Peretti said during the company\u2019s most recent earnings call<\/a>, \u201cit takes time to ramp monetization of newer content formats.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n