On Monday, The New York Times revealed that they were leaving Apple News due to “little in the way of direct relationships with readers”. From that date, Times articles have no longer appeared in the Apple News app, available for iPhone, iPad and Mac.
The Times is “one of the first” organisations to leave Apple News and says that “it hoped to instead drive readers directly to its own website and mobile app”. Later on, due to concerns about revenue from advertisements inside the app, TNYT reduced the amount of articles it published on the platform.
The Times, which has made adding new subscribers a key business goal, said Apple had given it little in the way of direct relationships with readers and little control over the business. It said it hoped to instead drive readers directly to its own website and mobile app so that it could “fund quality journalism.”
“Core to a healthy model between The Times and the platforms is a direct path for sending those readers back into our environments, where we control the presentation of our report, the relationships with our readers and the nature of our business rules,” Meredith Kopit Levien, chief operating officer, wrote in a memo to employees. “Our relationship with Apple News does not fit within these parameters.”
The company will continue to work with Apple on other services, such as hardware, podcasts and apps.
