AI Summary
5 min readWhen Meredith Kopit Levien became CEO of the New York Times six years ago, the company was just emerging from "the really hard arc of digital transformation" — a long period of playing defense against the collapse of print. Now, she says, the question has shifted from survival to ambition: "What is all that the New York Times can be and do as a force for value creation?"
The answer, as she explains on the Odd Lots podcast, is a company that has expanded far beyond its newspaper roots into games, cooking, sports (via The Athletic), and now a major push into video. But the core logic binding it all together is not diversification for its own sake — it's a bet that high-quality, independent, human-led journalism and lifestyle content can attract a massive, engaged, paying audience in an era of AI-generated slop and platform dependency.
The Bundle Is Not a Loss Leader — The News Is the Engine
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What you'll learn
- 1 (02:04) **Episode Introduction & The New York Times' Transformation** - Joe and Tracy frame the conversation by recalling the old "Titanic" narrative of print media versus the internet, and how the New York Times has since reversed its fortunes.
- 2 (05:04) **Defining the New York Times Brand** - Meredith defines the company as an "essential service for curious people" and describes her transition from playing defense to thinking ambitiously about value creation.
- 3 (11:15) **Resource Allocation: Journalism vs. New Verticals** - Meredith explains the economic value of hard news and how the company's model ensures editorial decisions are not constrained by cost.
- 4 (16:00) **Talent Retention and the Independent Journalist Threat** - Meredith addresses the risk of star journalists leaving for platforms like Substack or 60 Minutes, outlining the Times' value proposition.
- 5 (23:09) **Sourcing Talent from Independent Platforms** - Meredith discusses whether the Times is actively recruiting talent from TikTok, Substack, and other independent platforms.
- 6 (24:40) **The New Video Strategy: From Cynical to Consumer-Driven** - Meredith explains the company's renewed push into video, distinguishing it from the failed "pivot to video" of the past.
- 7 (30:23) **Why Consumers Value Video Over Text or Audio** - Meredith explains the consumer demand for video news and how it represents a new audience, not a replacement.
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Show Notes
In the last decade, the New York Times has remade itself many times over. It has done that through acquisitions (The Athletic, Wirecutter, and the ever-popular Wordle) and by navigating all the different challenges that have emerged in the digital age and now the age of AI. Its video operation, for instance, has grown exponentially in the last few years. And they've used AI tools in their reporting, namely in several pieces they did on the Epstein Files. At the same time, the company is also suing the likes of OpenAI and Perplexity for copyright infringement. To understand the modern media landscape, you really do have to understand the Times, so today we speak with The New York Times Company's CEO and president, Meredith Kopit Levien. We talk to her about how to run a media business without seeing the news itself as a loss leader, the NYT's evolving bundle strategy, how the paper retains talent, why the current pivot to video is different from the first one, and the ideal set-up for AI companies and media properties to co-exist.
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