Here' s How Little The New York Times Was ... - Business Insider

Daniel Goodman / Business Insider

The Times' HQ.

?

IAC has agreed to buy About.com from the New York Times for $300 million in cash, according to Bloomberg.

But the sale won't fix NYT's overall digital problems?it's still seeing declining digital revenues, which mostly come from selling ads.

NYT bought About for $410 million in 2005, in one of those attempts to move a newspaper brand into the digital age.

Here are About's most recent top and bottom lines, according to Bloomberg, almost all of which come from ad sales:

The website?s revenue fell 8.7 percent to $25.4 million last quarter, and it posted an operating loss of $186.8 million ...

That loss includes a non-cash writedown of $194.7 million.* Once you back that out of About's numbers, the unit made $7.9 million operating profit before taxes and other expenses in Q2 2012.

That sounds reasonable until you look at About's revenue trends. NYT reported:

About Group advertising revenues decreased 8.9% in the second quarter and 16.7% in the first six months of 2012 ...

At that rate of decline, The Times' operating profit on About would have been wiped out completely in about a year. It appears The Times got out just in time.

IAC boss Barry Diller will combine About with Ask.com. Hopefully, he has a plan to fix About's revenue side.

Meanwhile, here's the overall picture at the Times?including About and the various newspaper titles?before the sale, per the most recent 10-Q:

Digital advertising revenues decreased 4.0% and 7.2% in the second quarter and first six months of 2012, respectively.

That portends more structural changes at the paper in the near future.

*Correction: This item originally described incorrectly the nature of the Times' losses on About.com. The writedown is a non-cash loss.

Related:

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-much-money-the-new-york-times-was-losing-on-aboutcom-2012-8

jaco san jose sharks humber perfect game ufc 145 fight card ufc145 chimpanzee chimpanzee