The New York Times announced that it is pulling out of Apple News app. The publisher stated that the decision to withdraw from the Apple’s news service was because of the company’s ‘strategy of building direct relationships with paying readers.’
The New York Times will no longer publish articles on Apple News and has pulled out all articles that were published on the service previously. NTY says that Apple has given them little control “in the way of direct relationships with readers and over the business”. However, there is a more business oriented reason behind the move.
The NYT aims to drive readers to its own digital newspaper website and app to ‘fund quality journalism’ and fortunately for the publisher, it has been attracting an impressive number of subscribers. Meredith Kopit Levien, the Chief Operating Officer of the NYT, wrote in a memo to employees that:
“Core to a healthy model between The Times and the platforms is a direct path for sending those readers back into our environments, where we control the presentation of our report, the relationships with our readers, and the nature of our business rules. Our relationship with Apple News does not fit within these parameters.”
Apple News+
Last year, Apple introduced Apple News+ which offers access to hundreds of publications that have a separate digital subscription. The paid service has additional range of exclusive content which the reader would not have access to on their publication or mediums.
The service was also used as a way for publishers to earn revenue. However, many publications had to undercut their own prices. Half the revenue was shared among all the publications, while Apple kept the other half for itself. Despite being underwhelmed by the sales, many publishers like The LA Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair are continuing to work with Apple.
As The New York Times owns a successful subscription-based readership online platform, it decided to opt out of Apple News+. It is also worth mentioning that the publisher earned very little capital via advertising on News+ and Apple’s 30% cut from subscription via app, added to its monetary problems.
A spokesperson for Apple said that The New York Times only offered a few stories to Apple News+ and despite losing a renowned publisher, Apple will continue to provide trusted information to readers from credible sources from all over the world.
“We are also committed to supporting quality journalism through the proven business models of advertising, subscriptions and commerce,” he said.
Articles from The New York Times can be accessed via Google News, Facebook, Apple News, and other channels. In spite of parting of ways, the publisher hopes that exiting the news service would not have a ‘material impact’ on its future projects with Apple.
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