Amid increasing speculation, The New York Times maintains it is not for sale
The New York Times is not for sale according to publisher and chairman of The New York Times Company, Arthur Sulzberger Jr.
Sulzberger was forced to issue the statement amid increasing speculation that the US’s last major newspaper run by a family would take the same path as Don Graham’s Washington Post, which this week sold to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and The Boston Globe, which the company sold as part of the New England Media Group on Saturday.
“Will our family seek to sell The Times? The answer to that is no. The Times is not for sale, and the trustees of the Ochs-Sulzberger Trust and the rest of the family are united in our commitment to work together with the company’s board, senior management and employees to lead The New York Times forward into our global and digital future,” the statement said.
It added: “We’re incredibly proud of our association with this great institution and, on behalf of the trustees and the other members of our family, we plan for that association to continue for many years to come.”
The statement also said that Mark Thompson, the company’s president and chief executive, will find profits by expanding “investment internationally, in video, in paid products and in brand extensions.”
However, rather surprisingly, the statement said that The Times’ strategy to charge customers for accessing content online would only be kept in place is it remained successful. So far it has been, with paid subscribers in the second quarter increasing by 35 per cent to 699,000 year-on-year.