The New York Times Co., which owns About.com and Boston.com in addition to the newspaper and its digital sites, posted an operating loss of $114.1 million for the second quarter. That compares to a profit of $60.8 million for the same period in 2010. The company blamed the shortfall on depreciation, amortization, severance and other items without which it would have posted an operating profit of $82.9 million for the quarter.
Revenues for the quarter fell 2.2% compared to the same period in 2010, to $576.7 million. That included a 4% decrease in advertising revenue. Digital advertising revenues rose 2.6%, which partially offset a 6.4% decrease in print advertising. The company said the 281,000 new digital subscriptions -- of which 224,000 were digital subscription packages and 57,000 were ereader and replica subscriptions -- helped keep overall circulation revenues flat since print subscriptions fell.
The newspaper announced its digital subscription plan in March and within the first three weeks had more than 100,000 subscribers. Under the deal, readers could get a four-week trial for $0.99, a big discount over the $15 to $35 for the print edition.