Woo, Sue, and ARPU: What Publisher Earnings Reveal About Their AI Strategies

Traffic is down across the media industry, and AI is the main reason why. 

That was the throughline connecting the second-quarter earnings from The New York Times, News Corp, USA Today Co., and People Inc., all of which were reported this week. 

In response to the declines, each company is implementing some version of the same three-part playbook: licensing their content to AI companies where they can; suing or blocking where they cannot; and squeezing more revenue out of the readers they have. 

In describing his approach to the problem, News Corp CEO Robert Thomson has called the strategy a “woo and sue” framework.