The New York Times wants more than a cheque from AI licensing

Tue, 13 Oct 2026 15:04:14 +0000

The New York Times says AI licensing deals must offer lasting strategic value, reader referrals and firm controls over how its journalism is used.

The New York Times is approaching artificial intelligence licensing with caution, insisting that any deal must do more than simply deliver a cheque. Speaking at the Digiday Publishing Summit in Miami last week, Adam Greenberg, the paper’s vice-president of strategic partnerships, said the market for AI licensing has improved for publishers, but remains immature and difficult to navigate. He argued that while AI companies are increasingly expected to pay for content or at least allow publishers to opt out, the surrounding marketplace is still far from settled.

Greenberg said the central challenge is that publishers cannot yet know how their material will be used over time, or what the dominant AI products will look like in a few years. That uncertainty makes it hard to price rights fairly, define how content may be reused and decide who should control outputs created from licensed material. Industry commentary from ContentDividend and Talkory has made similar points, noting that publishers entering AI agreements need clarity on training, retrieval and display rights, attribution, revenue share, duration and audit provisions if they are to avoid disputes later on.

For the Times, Greenberg said, any agreement must satisfy three tests: clear value, a durable relationship and firm controls over how material is used. He rejected the idea of one-off payments with no wider strategic benefit, arguing that a licensing arrangement should also support collaboration, ecosystem development and, ideally, stronger referral or attribution links that send readers back to the publisher’s own platforms. That matters because the Times remains, above all, a subscription business built on direct audience relationships and habitual readership.

Greenberg said the company’s partnership with Amazon fits those requirements because it combines compensation, collaboration and safeguards that leave the publisher comfortable with the arrangement. He declined to discuss whether other AI licensing deals are in place, but suggested the small number of public transactions reflects how demanding these negotiations are. Even as AI labs and platforms increasingly speak the language of sustainability, copyright respect and creator revenue, he said, the practical details remain the hardest part.

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Source: Noah Wire Services

Reach to cut 220 editorial jobs and close three local news sites

Tue, 13 Oct 2026 08:11:22 +0000

The Daily Mirror and Daily Express publisher will shut KentLive, AberdeenLive and GalwayBeo while creating roles in subscriptions and video as it responds to falling traffic and advertising revenue.

Reach, the owner of the Daily Mirror and Daily Express, is preparing to shrink its editorial operation further as it responds to a steep deterioration in the economics of regional and national news publishing.

According to the company, 220 editorial posts are set to go, while three local digital titles - KentLive, AberdeenLive and GalwayBeo - are due to close. The move comes as Reach says it is trying to protect as many jobs as possible elsewhere in the business, but concludes that the scale of the pressure facing the wider industry leaves it with little choice but to enter next year with a smaller newsroom.

David Higgerson, Reach’s chief content officer, said he and the editorial senior leadership team had already pared back a range of non-staff budgets and that other parts of the group had also been asked to absorb reductions this year. Even so, he said the company could not escape the conclusion that more drastic changes were required. His remarks underline how severely the publisher is being hit by the combined effects of weakening traffic, especially from search engines, and tougher competition for audiences and advertising.

The latest cuts are part of a longer retrenchment at Reach, which has been repeatedly forced to trim costs as print revenues have declined and digital monetisation has proved harder than expected. In November 2023, the group announced plans to cut about 450 jobs, saying it needed to reduce operating costs by 5% to 6% in 2024 amid continuing weakness in online and print advertising markets. That announcement followed earlier rounds of redundancies, illustrating the extent to which the publisher has been trying to remake itself around a more efficient digital model.

This time, however, the company is not only cutting roles but also redirecting resources towards areas it believes can support future growth. Reach has said it intends to create 60 posts in subscriptions and longer-form video, signalling that it sees paid-for content and richer formats as more promising than relying on search referrals alone. The strategic shift reflects a broader reckoning across British media, where publishers have spent years chasing traffic from Google only to find those audiences increasingly volatile, while the BBC and other rivals continue to dominate attention online.

For staff, though, the immediate reality is another wave of uncertainty. The reduction in newsroom headcount, coupled with the closure of local titles, suggests Reach is betting that a leaner editorial structure will be enough to sustain its core brands in a market that remains under intense strain. The company’s challenge now is whether it can maintain coverage quality and audience reach while asking fewer journalists to do more work.

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Source: Noah Wire Services

Tomorrow's Publisher 2 Strategy

The New York Times wants more than a cheque from AI licensing

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Reach to cut 220 editorial jobs and close three local news sites

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