Arthur Sulzberger

According to The Wall Street Journal, in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the Times reported that Sulzberger earned a whopping $6.9 million in 2012. That’s up from $5.9 million in 2011.

Not bad, right? Sure, it’s not Michael Bloomberg money, but hey, you have to start somewhere.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Scott Heekin-Canedy

Heekin-Canedy was one of the forces behind the Times implementing its paywall, which has been a success. In a note to staff, Arthur Sulzberger said losing Heekin-Canedy meant that “we are losing a great talent who has seen us through a very difficult economic period.”

According to the Times, Heekin-Canedy’s position will be eliminated when he steps aside.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Now for the bad news. The company saw overall revenue drop by 0.6 percent, to $449 million. Revenue fell because ad earnings crashed by almost nine percent.

Arthur Sulzberger, of course, tried to stick to the positive news from the report. “While our results for the third quarter reflect continued pressure on advertising revenues, total circulation revenues rose, led by the ongoing expansion of our digital subscription base,” said Sulzberger, in a statement.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

As it became clear that not even mediation was moving the company to realistic terms on compensation, we have taken the temperature of the newsroom. Some of our colleagues have moved beyond their bewilderment, past a sense of betrayal, to openly discussing the prospect of having to seek other work, perhaps even new careers. After building the world’s finest newsroom with people who would literally go to war for The Times, you cannot possibly regard these outcomes as desirable. We don’t.

The letter was delivered to Sulzberger only hours after Times union members handed out informational flyers in front of the Times building.

The entire letter to Sulzberger can be read here.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Mark Thompson

In a statement, Arthur Sulzberger, chairman of the Times Company, said Thompson is “a gifted and experienced executive with strong credentials whose leadership at the BBC helped it to extend its trusted brand identity into new digital products and services.”

So ends the search for someone to replace Janet Robinson, who departed the Times in December of last year. Now comes the hard part for Thompson and the Times: Dealing with declining ad dollars in a world that continues to shift toward digital media.

From FishbowlNY to Thompson — good luck. You’re probably going to need some.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

1. Gawker’s Fox News Mole Reveals … Nothing [Update], April 11
2. Brian Stelter is New York Media’s Best Boyfriend, April 6
3. Patch Editor Resigns Brian Farnham, April 11
4. Hot 97′s Summer Jam 2012 Set for June 3, April 9
5. New York Times Reporter’s Email Attacking Arthur Sulzberger Leaked, April 10

Keep up-to-date with the latest FishbowlNY news. Click here to sign-up for the FishbowlNY daily newsletter, bringing you our articles each afternoon directly to your inbox.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

A.G. Sulzberger

Sam Sifton naturally had nothing but good things to say about  Sulzberger’s time at the National desk:

Arthur proved that opening a news bureau in Kansas City, Missouri, was not merely a good idea but a great one. He reveled in quirky, revealing stories (like an accounting of the last shop to process Kodachrome, or a profile of a man who, at 103, was the oldest still-serving federal judge in the country). But when big news came along, again and again he showed that there was no steadier hand on the desk.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Here’s a few more gems from Talese:

On Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.:

I think the Times is now better than ever. Better than when I worked for it. And Sulzberger the publisher has to take credit for it. And I think that the reporters we celebrate tonight are the quintessential journalists of my lifetime, and the editors too: The Jill Abramsons, the Bill Kellers, and the publisher Sulzberger. Here I am sort of making a belated celebration of and tossing of the hat to and making my genuflection to people I criticized four or five years ago.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

As the questions kept piling on, Sulzberger grew more agitated, reports The Daily Beast. When people said the paywall system was too complex, he reiterated the subscription offers, then sarcastically added, “So you have three different print plans that you can choose from. And sometimes, on top of that, you can even go outside and buy it.” A perfect answer, if you ask us.

He also denied the rumor that the paywall cost $40 million to produce, compared trying to work around the paywall to stealing a copy of the paper from a newsstand, and to top it all off, said this fake quote – attributed to him – from The Onion was perfect:

If this fails, I’d honestly rather The New York Times not exist in a world where people are unwilling to pay the price of a fucking movie ticket for a monthly online subscription.

FishbowlNY couldn’t agree more.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

PRNewser‘s Joe Ciarallo attended the PaidContent 2010 conference today in New York. At the conference, the top three executives at The New York Times Company addressed perhaps one of the biggest stories in journalism in recent months: the company’s decision to move to a “metered system” over the next year from what is now a completely open and free website.

Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., the company’s chairman & publisher, insisted that the Times is not worried that a pay meter will cause the newspaper to lose relevance. “We are not trying to eliminate ourselves from the digital eco-system,” he said. “We’ll only lose relevance if we lose our brand promise, and our brand promise is having the best journalism you can find.”

“What people misunderstand about the business model issue is it’s not just to figure out a pricing and metered based model, but it’s about how to figure out how to grow your advertising business,” said Martin Neisenholtz, SVP of digital operations. “We intend fully to grow that ad business for as long as we need to, and that is the challenge.”

When asked if the company’s blogs will be a part of the metered system, Neisenholtz said, “Our intention is that blogs would be behind the wall.”

President & CEO Janet Robinson reinforced the stance that the metered system will help the Times grow its ad revenue and audience. “The metered solution is an elegant solution providing both free and paid content. This is a way for us to continue to have a robust ad base but also have a large audience as well,” she said.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

A whopping 44 percent of our readers responded that they wouldn’t pay anything to read the Times‘ content, which actually is a little bit better than both the national average of people willing to pay for online content (about 50 percent), and the percentage of random people in SoHo willing to open their wallets (63 percent), according to other polls.

But now that Arthur Sulzberger has actual — albeit far off — plans to put up a metered pay wall for the Times in 2011, we wondered if anyone’s tune has changed. So now the question isn’t how much you’re willing to pay, but if you’ll pay at all. Let us know!

Would You Pay to Read The New York Times Online?(trends)

Previously: Would You Pay To Read NYTimes.com?, New York Magazine Poll: Newspapers and New Media Neck and Neck, But No One Willing To Pay, New Yorkers Less Willing To Pay For Content Than Rest of Country

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Since then, publisher Arthur Sulzberger has made vague promises, culminating in today’s announcement of a plan to launch a metered pay model on NYTimes.com next year. It makes sense: last year saw the Times‘ hemorrhaging money (losing $35 million in the third quarter alone), and speculation that the paper wouldn’t make it to 2010.

Thankfully, Carlos Slim stepped in last year, but it still remains to be seen how the Grey Lady will make it back into the black. While alienating some readers, the metered system of content-charging that Sulzberger is planning may actually be the best compromise between giving away your product for free and going on almost total lock-down mode like the The Wall Street Journal. Under this plan, The New York Times will eventually allow you to read only a certain number of articles per month before asking you to subscribe, much like Variety or The Financial Times (although some have pointed out that the FT‘s model is looking more and more like the Journal‘s).

But even before today’s not completely unexpected announcement, media critics were chomping at the bit to react to the Times‘ possible pay plans. After the jump, a look at what some of them are saying.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

As suspected, the reason behind the move is the search for an additional revenue stream, which Sulzberger and Robinson said, “will be an important part of our future.” They added:

“While digital advertising will continue to be the major contributor to our success on the Web, we expect that online subscription revenue will improve our ability to grow an important part of this business.”

As for the choice of a metered model versus, say, The Wall Street Journal‘s model requiring payment for full access to exclusive stories, Sulzberger and Robinson said the move will allow the Times to “remain a vibrant part of the search-driven Web, which has proven to be an integral reason for why we have become an industry leader in display advertising.” Who said Google News wasn’t good for something (ahem, Rupert Murdoch)?

Sulzberger and Robinson also addressed concern from critics recently — criticism which has reached a fever pitch since a New York magazine report surfaced over the weekend revealing the paper’s pay model plans a few days in advance. The execs admitted there are challenges ahead, and they are taking it slowly, planning to roll out the pay model a year from now. As they told their staff:

“Ultimately, we recognize that the success of our ideas will be judged by how well we execute this effort in the months to come. That is why we are waiting until 2011 to introduce this new system. To pursue this new approach requires that we utilize the full energy and intellect of all of you. All that work begins today…It will take time to get this right.”

Other things to take away from the memo: while the idea of joining a consortium with other publishers is still on the table, this metered model will be a “stand-alone product.”

In addition to the memo, the paper also published their own story today about their announcement, emphasizing their desire to take it slowly and get their pay model right. Executive editor Bill Keller, has reportedly “embraced the plan,” telling the Times:

“It underscores the value of what we do — trustworthy, aggressively reported professional journalism, which is an increasingly rare and precious thing. And it gives us a second way to sustain that hard, expensive work, in addition to our healthy advertising revenue.”

After the jump, the full memo sent to Times staffers today.

Read more: The Times to Charge for Frequent Access to Its Web Site –New York Times

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The model will be a metered plan, as predicted by New York magazine’s Gabriel Sherman over the weekend. Although announced today, the plan won’t go into effect until next year, the New York Times Co. said.

The metered plan will allow users to access a certain number of articles for free before being prompted to pay for additional access, much like The Financial Times‘ current model. Subscribers to the print edition will continue to have free access.

Said publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.:

“Our new business model is designed to provide additional support for The New York Times‘ extraordinary, professional journalism. Our audiences are very loyal and we believe that our readers will pay for our award-winning digital content and services.”

Full release after the jump

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Unfortunately this prohibits at least one person from doing their job, as the Times‘ Diner’s Journal blog was quick to speculate: “Could this possibly explain why The Times‘s restaurant critic, Sam Sifton, grabbed his coat and left in such a hurry a few minutes after the memo hit his inbox?”

Read More: Gastrointestinal Outbreak at the Times! — Daily Intel

All the Food That’s Fit… –New York Times

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.