Ad Falloff Bites into NYTD Revenue

The falloff in online display advertising, particularly from dot-com and technology clients, has hurt the pockets of New York Times Digital (NYTD) , the gray lady’s interactive arm.

The company said revenues from the NYTD operations fell off by more than $2 million in the second quarter, a 12 percent drop from the same year-ago period. In the second quarter of 2000, NYTD raked in $17.5 million, mostly from Web-based advertising.

NYTD, which operates the free NYTimes.com and Boston.com destinations, has resisted the urge to go the premium content route but the contracting ad market is beginning to hurt the bottom line.

On the positive side, the company said the reduced revenue was partially offset by growth in classified advertising revenue, which was up almost 40 percent in the second quarter.

Excluding items, NYTD’s total costs in the quarter dropped 44 percent from the previous year’s second quarter. Operating losses were $1.1 million compared with $11.7 million in the same quarter last year.

The company said lower operating losses were mainly due to strong cost reduction efforts,
including decreased staffing, promotion and systems costs.