By Sara Guaglione • May 9, 2025 •
Publishing execs didn’t shy away from the elephant in the room during their first quarter earnings calls: What impact would President Donald Trump’s tariff policy and the uncertain economic climate have on their businesses?
CEOs and CFOs at BuzzFeed, Dotdash Meredith, Gannett, News Corp and The New York Times worked to ease shareholder and market concerns about this year’s economic outlook.
Most said they were confident that their businesses could continue to grow amid the uncertain macroeconomic climate. All four companies reaffirmed their quarterly and full-year guidance.
In their company earnings calls this week, publishers noted they had not seen any measurable impact from the tariffs policy on their businesses yet. However, digital advertising revenues were mostly flat year-over-year in Q1 2025 for BuzzFeed, Dotdash Meredith and Gannett, up 2.3%, up 1%, down 1.3%, respectively. Advertising revenue at News Corp’s Dow Jones business, which includes The Wall Street Journal, had no change year over year.
The New York Times’ digital advertising business grew 12% year-over-year in the quarter.
Times CEO Meredith Kopit Levien attributed that growth to the publisher’s “diverse” range of products and categories, new advertising supply and large audience.
“We’ve had a strong start to the year, our strategy is working and our business is growing and demonstrating resilience amidst the current economic and geopolitical uncertainty,” Kopit Levien said.
News Corp execs were also confident that the Dow Jones business could weather the economic instability. “Advertising is likely to be volatile, given the macro uncertainty,” said CFO Lavanya Chandrashekar, with CEO Robert Thomson later adding in the earnings call that Dow Jones is “consistently reporting double digit revenue increases in the key segments, and there’s no reason to presume that those double digit increases will not continue.”
However, revenue in the News Media group, which includes the New York Post and U.K. newspapers, fell 8%, in part because of “tougher advertising conditions,” which were partially offset by increased cover prices and subscription prices, Chandrashekar said.
If the economy does take a turn, BuzzFeed will capitalize on its programmatic advertising business, a “more resilient form of revenue,” claimed BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti. The programmatic market has benefited from recessions in the past, given advertisers’ tendency to focus on more performance-driven and scalable forms of media buying during economic downturns.
“I would expect [programmatic] to be a higher percentage if we ended up in an unexpected macro kind of downturn. But it will be important regardless of what happens in the economy,” Peretti said. The first quarter was BuzzFeed’s fourth consecutive quarter of programmatic advertising growth, increasing by $2.5 million year over year. (However, BuzzFeed had a $2.1 million decline in direct-sold advertising, though maybe that’s to be expected given BuzzFeed’s strategic shift away from its direct ads business.)
But the reliance on programmatic might not work for everyone. Dotdash Meredith is seeing programmatic pricing soften due to the “recent concerns about tariffs,” and are now flat year over year, according to Joey Levin, CEO of IAC, DDM’s parent company.
Publishers may be keeping a cool head because they’re so accustomed to having contingency plans amid market volatility. Plus, it’s still early days in terms of being able to anticipate the effect any tariffs may have on advertiser spending. Nevertheless, they will be watching closely for how advertisers respond to the tariff-induced pressures in the coming months.
“I think that there is definitely a little bit of uncertainty in the buyers, and [they are] a little slower to pull the trigger,” said Dotdash Meredith CEO Neil Vogel.
But Christopher Halpin, CFO at IAC, Dotdash Meredith’s parent company, remained confident that there would not be a “significant recession.” Dotdash Meredith experienced “stable” premium ad revenue, due primarily to strengths in the technology, retail and beauty & style categories, offsetting weaknesses in food and beverage, according to the company.
“That assumption derives from what we are seeing in our businesses, but we know we are living in unpredictable times, all we can control is our focus and execution,” Halpin said.
Despite their optimism, however, it’s still very early days for the potential knock-on effect of tariffs on advertiser budgets, meaning next quarter’s earnings calls could paint a very different picture.
“I think anyone who doesn’t think the mood of the buyers is changing is not paying attention. But we haven’t seen any significant, huge crash in that yet. I guess it all remains to be seen,” Vogel said.
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