New York Times Co at Citi TMT Conference Summary

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Jason Bazinet - Citi Infrastructure Investments LLC - Analyst : <_ALACRA_META_ABSTRACT>I guess I'm going to -- I'm relatively new to your story. I don't know exactly how many years we've covered it. But when I went through, at least backward-looking, your strategy, and I was talking with Anthony about this, he said, oh, yes. He says you've got a pretty good handle in terms of what we're doing. He says, you really need to meet Will because he was really the architect of this before he became our CFO. So I would love to just start, if you could just give us, even just to paint the context, roll the clock back. You're sitting there with this iconic brand. Presumably you have some mandate to pivot to digital. Just walk us through like what was up on the whiteboard, what was the hypothesis? And then what were the broad contours of your strategy a few years ago and how has it evolved to where we sit today? What is it that you've learned along the way?

Question: Jason Bazinet - Citi Infrastructure Investments LLC - Analyst : Okay. I'm not -- I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I want to -- can I just probe on this strategy a little bit? Because the way I would have described it, looking from the outside, right, with no information, is a little bit differently than that. So in 2010, I think the hypothesis was people are not going to pay for news, right? I think that was the governing thought. There were no analogs, right? Everything was free and you're never going to get anyone buy the paywall. So I've looked at your strategy as: how can we take a consumer that has a narrow interest, with cooking, with sports, with games, and at least begin to get our hooks in them and then open up into a broader portfolio of everything that The Times has to offer? And so it's all about casting a wide net, piquing someone's interest, and then expanding that relationship in a classic software sense, land and expand, right? Is that the wrong way to describe what you're doing?

Question: Jason Bazinet - Citi Infrastructure Investments LLC - Analyst : That's great. I have the pleasure of speaking to a lot of bearish investors on your stock. And surprisingly, one of the things that comes up over and over again is the New York Times is not going to hit this 15 million subscriber number by 2027. And you guys seem totally like unfazed by this line of inquiry. It's just -- and to me, I think it -- personally, I just think it's irrelevant because it's a KPI that's out there. And it's an aspiration, and I'm just more focused on your free cash flow. But can you just address when you laid out that 15 million subs by 2027, was that an aspiration, is it a hard target? How confident do you feel in your ability to hit it? Is it even important to you?

Question: Jason Bazinet - Citi Infrastructure Investments LLC - Analyst : Okay. That's great. I risk trying to explain something complicated in words that should be done with pictures, but I'm going to try and do this. When I went back and looked at long, I think, roughly 2010 to 2020, on your news-only pricing and news-only volume, there is this very clear relationship. As you lowered prices, you got more volume. When you rejiggered your disclosures where we started to get bundled and news-only, again, for a couple of years, there is this very clear relationship. It's as you raised news-only prices, fewer subs; as you dropped bundled prices, more subs. It just screamed elasticity of demand to be all over. And this is a couple of years ago. And Anthony said to me, he's like, yes, but you haven't given us any credit for any data point that isn't on this P x Q chart. And I said, well, that's because we've gone 12 years without you putting up a data point that's off the P x Q chart, right? It's just an elasticity story. In the last four quarters, maybe five, you're putting up data points that are off that demand curve, right, where you're getting prices that are higher than you've ever got, right? I mean not in absolute terms, but you're getting higher prices without degradation in quantity. And that seems new to me, maybe it's about 1 year old. Do you look at the data the same way? Do you feel like the last four or five quarters are as important as they seem to me on the outside?

Question: Jason Bazinet - Citi Infrastructure Investments LLC - Analyst : It's great.

Question: Jason Bazinet - Citi Infrastructure Investments LLC - Analyst : So in this sense, the fact that your business is becoming more digital gives you just much more signal from the consumer that you never really had. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 04, 2025 / 2:50PM, NYT.N - New York Times Co at Citi TMT Conference

Question: Jason Bazinet - Citi Infrastructure Investments LLC - Analyst : Okay. I'm going to shift to digital ads. I think you did almost 20% digital ad growth in the last quarter, much better than you've done for quite some time, I think better than a lot of investors were expecting. I guess the question is, was there something different or unusual about this quarter? Like I mean, is that normal? It feels like pretty extraordinary.

Question: Jason Bazinet - Citi Infrastructure Investments LLC - Analyst : That's great. You mentioned using AI to help fuel your ad business. I want to flip it around and talk about AI as a source of revenue. I candidly get a little bit confused when I listen to the Wall Street Journal or I listen to Gannett or I listen to you in that there doesn't seem to be a through-line, like anything that's consistent at the AI paying money to publishers to tap into their reservoir of content, nor is there any consistency in terms of, I think, how the publishers are thinking about how to partner, not partner, sue AI firms. So can you just start at a high level and just remind us, like what is your philosophy regarding AI? Do you feel like we're at a point where there will be some harmonious relationship between these AI firms and publishers? Or is it still very much a TBD?

Question: Jason Bazinet - Citi Infrastructure Investments LLC - Analyst : Great. I'm going to shift and talk about your marketing spend. You spend about 5% of your revenues, I think, on external marketing. There is a little bit of, I think, an adverse reaction in your stock. I think it was in the fourth quarter when the marketing spend was a little bit -- at least the market perceived, it was elevated. It's since quieted down a bit. But I know investors are so focused on this metric. I would just love for you to just share about, what is your philosophy regarding marketing spend? What are the metrics that you're looking at, the channels you're using? And I think you guys just launched a pretty interesting new ad campaign, which implies that there might be a new chapter in terms of how you're thinking about getting new customers to use The Times. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 04, 2025 / 2:50PM, NYT.N - New York Times Co at Citi TMT Conference

Question: Jason Bazinet - Citi Infrastructure Investments LLC - Analyst : It's good, by the way.

Question: Jason Bazinet - Citi Infrastructure Investments LLC - Analyst : So that leads -- that is my next question. I was looking at your product development costs. In 2019, they were about half of what your sales and marketing budget is. And now the two are almost comparable. Is that what you're referring to? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 04, 2025 / 2:50PM, NYT.N - New York Times Co at Citi TMT Conference

Question: Jason Bazinet - Citi Infrastructure Investments LLC - Analyst : That's great. So this feels like more of a Wall Street question, but I'm going to ask it because I get it all the time from investors. And I think what some investors are fishing for is this discontinuity in your P&L and they're like, oh, my gosh, what happens if the print business goes away? Is this going to be a bad day or a good day? Or what does the P&L look like if I artificially slice the revenues and income statement, digital on one side, print on the other? And so I would just love a perspective from you in terms of how you guys think about that print business. Do you have internal numbers where you can measure with some precision if print is still profitable? And do you see a time in 5 years or 10 years or 15 where there won't be a print business?

Question: Jason Bazinet - Citi Infrastructure Investments LLC - Analyst : Okay. My last question, on uses of cash. You guys have said you return roughly 50% of your cash in the form of buybacks and dividends. But I can't help but notice, I mean at least on our numbers, $1 billion-ish of cash, short term, long term and securities that you have on hand today. You guys have always said you're very disciplined in your M&A. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 04, 2025 / 2:50PM, NYT.N - New York Times Co at Citi TMT Conference And I think historically, you've always been very conservative in terms of how you think about the right amount of cash to hold on the balance sheet. But what -- can you just frame for us, for the cash that you're going to generate going forward that's not used for dividends, not used for buybacks, are you still on the hunt for intelligent M&A? Is that the right way to think about it? Or should investors think maybe more cash will get returned to shareholders than the 50%?

Question: Jason Bazinet - Citi Infrastructure Investments LLC - Analyst : That's great, Will. Thank you so much for the time.