New York Times Co at UBS Global Media and Communications Conference Transcript

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

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : So Meredith, what we always do here, end of year. It's been a great year for New York Times. The stock has done very well. The results have been great. Maybe we could start by framing for the audience your priorities for the company as we look out to 2026.

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Great. And I think we'll touch on a lot of those topics. Maybe we'll start with driving customers or people to the service. You're at nearly 12 million digital subscribers heading into the year. Year-end goal was 15 million by middle '27.

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Exactly. Milestone. The question we get a lot is how big is the addressable market for The New York Times? And sort of what can you do to sort of expand that TAM?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : That's great. Family plans are also a relatively new development.

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Okay. Well, let's hear how awesome. How did the uptake then and can family plans be a meaningful driver of the 1 million-plus subs you need to hit that 2027 milestone?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : And it seems like some recent commentary, it's you're seeing a lot of adoption with the existing base. Is it actually helping to drive new customers or sort of I guess it's early days, but do you expect it to have an impact on churn as well?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Cool. Third quarter was your highest quarter of single product net adds. Can you talk about why you decided to move the mini behind the paywall and maybe the criteria that management uses to make these decisions?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : So it was very powerful in driving subs this quarter. Are there other levers that you could pull either in games or in other parts of the business to sort of drive the subscriber to drive people into the sort of paid subscriber base?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Right. And it's leading not just to subscriber growth, but you talked about steady year-over-year ARPU growth going forward. Can you talk about sort of the drivers of this and just your overall confidence you can maintain those trends and still sort of maintain pricing power?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Great. You started off talking about ways to drive engagement and maybe sort of widen the focus from a demographic standpoint or to pull in people of different ages. And I think the what you've done on the video and audio side has been a big part of that. Can you talk about the engagement from these new mediums and what that's doing to your business, especially the launch of the watched tab that you saw that you did in October? Just what are the early sort of returns that we've seen from that development.

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Right. It seems that over time, I mean, that Watch tab is so easy to use. And on a mobile basis, it would seem that over time, it could become the primary way with which people, on a mobile basis, engage with New York Times.

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : And it's early days, but is it reaching a younger demo?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : And how do you see the Watch tab product evolving? Do you expect that over time, it will branch out into sort of non-New York Times content as well?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : And I know that there's no advertising on the tab as it stands now. What is there...

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Got you. Okay. Moving on to a new topic, AI. How does New York Times think about AI? And is it a friend or foe for the company?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : So along those lines, first of all, you have an existing deal with Amazon. How should we think about the opportunity to license the content.

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Right. And along those lines, last week, you filed a lawsuit against Perplexity adding to the existing lawsuits with Microsoft and OpenAI. How do you make the decision whether to seek settlement in court or move ahead with negotiations for a licensing agreement?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Got you. It seems like the recent acceleration in digital advertising revenue growth has been driven by new ad supply in specific verticals, namely sports, games and new audio and video impressions. Is a low 20s sort of high teens growth rate in digital advertising sustainable?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Great. Let's sort of pivot to the cost side. Can you talk about your approach to cost management? And is your cost growth trending higher over time? And if so, what are the drivers behind that?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Yeah. I would say the output of that equation is that you've been able to drive sort of 200 basis points of margin improvement per year over the last couple of years. Do you see that as a sustainable sort of rate of growth over the next several years? LSEG STREETEVENTS | www.lseg.com | Contact Us consent of LSEG. 'LSEG' and the LSEG logo are registered trademarks of LSEG and its affiliated companies. DECEMBER 09, 2025 / 3:30PM, NYT.N - New York Times Co at UBS Global Media and Communications Conference

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Great. And then maybe one on the balance sheet. You have no debt and cash building on the balance sheet. How should we think of sort of uses of cash going forward?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : And should we think of more of a focus on buybacks or dividends or sort of what is your?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Got it. All right. Maybe to wrap up, I would say we've had almost two days here of conversations with companies. And I would say New York Times is one of the few companies I can think of that has sort of successfully made the pivot from an analog business to a digital business. What would you say are the sort of high-level sort of learnings from your experience in driving that? Then Netflix is the other one which obviously made a lot of news here yesterday. What I would put New York Times, you had a business that people were really worried about. And now the vast majority of your business is digital. And from what we've seen in the last several quarters, accelerating nicely. So what would you say were the main drivers behind that success?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : That's perfect. Great summary, Meredith. Thanks for being here.