Newspaper and digital media company The New York Times (NYSE: NYT) reported Q2 CY2026 results topping the market’s revenue expectations, with sales up 11.2% year on year to $762.5 million. Its non-GAAP profit of $0.69 per share was 3.6% above analysts’ consensus estimates.

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Company Overview

Founded in 1851, The New York Times (NYSE: NYT) is an American media organization known for its influential newspaper and expansive digital journalism platforms.

Revenue Growth

A company’s long-term sales performance is one signal of its overall quality. Any business can put up a good quarter or two, but the best consistently grow over the long haul. Unfortunately, The New York Times’s 9.3% annualized revenue growth over the last five years was weak. This fell short of our benchmark for the consumer discretionary sector and is a poor baseline for our analysis.

Long-term growth is the most important, but within consumer discretionary, product cycles are short and revenue can be hit-driven due to rapidly changing trends and consumer preferences. The New York Times’s annualized revenue growth of 9.3% over the last two years aligns with its five-year trend, suggesting its demand was consistently weak.

We can dig further into the company’s revenue dynamics by analyzing its number of subscribers, which reached 12.8 million in the latest quarter. Over the last two years, The New York Times’s subscribers averaged 12.2% year-on-year growth. Because this number is higher than its revenue growth during the same period, we can see the company’s monetization has fallen.

This quarter, The New York Times reported year-on-year revenue growth of 11.2%, and its $762.5 million of revenue exceeded Wall Street’s estimates by 1.4%.

Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to grow 7.3% over the next 12 months, a slight deceleration versus the last two years. This projection is underwhelming and indicates its products and services will see some demand headwinds.

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Operating Margin

The New York Times’s operating margin has been trending up over the last 12 months and averaged 15.2% over the last two years. The company’s higher efficiency is a breath of fresh air, but its suboptimal cost structure means it still sports inadequate profitability for a consumer discretionary business.

In Q2, The New York Times generated an operating margin profit margin of 15.5%, in line with the same quarter last year. This indicates the company’s overall cost structure has been relatively stable.

Earnings Per Share

Revenue trends explain a company’s historical growth, but the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) points to the profitability of that growth — for example, a company could inflate its sales through excessive spending on advertising and promotions.

The New York Times’s EPS grew at 17.5% compounded annual growth rate over the last five years. This performance was better than its revenue growth but doesn’t tell us much about its business quality because its operating margin improvement was less than peers.

In Q2, The New York Times reported adjusted EPS of $0.69, up from $0.58 in the same quarter last year. This print beat analysts’ estimates by 3.6%. Over the next 12 months, Wall Street expects The New York Times’s full-year EPS to grow 7% from $2.78 to $2.98.

Key Takeaways from The New York Times’s Q2 Results

It was good to see The New York Times narrowly top analysts’ revenue expectations this quarter. We were also glad its EPS outperformed Wall Street’s estimates. Investors were likely hoping for more, and shares traded down 7.7% to $69.80 immediately following the results.

So do we think The New York Times is an attractive buy at the current price? When making that decision, it’s important to consider its valuation, business qualities, as well as what has happened in the latest quarter. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here (it’s free).