While Stagwell’s NewsFronts event focused on defending and proving the value of news advertising broadly, The New York Times used its speaking slot to showcase a different strategy: building innovative products that make brand safety conversations irrelevant.

Ben Winkler, head of agency development for New York Times Advertising, delivered a single-minded message: The New York Times has video advertising for sale across its entire portfolio.

He highlighted some compelling talking points:

• The New York Times is now “watched just as easily as read or listened to.”

• Every single New York Times’ podcast is now produced in audio and video form.

• In September 2025, nearly 200M minutes of video was consumed across The Times portfolio, more than double the year before.

Winkler also highlighted all the ways video editorial and advertising already is and will continue to show up across The Times portfolio, whether vertical videos of reporters explaining key events, NFL highlights on The Athletic, interstitial vertical video ad experiences on Games, consumer guidance across the entire shopping journey on Wirecutter, and recipe inspiration through rich video content and franchises on Cooking.

And a few days later, NYT launched its Watch Tab — a TikTok-inspired, swipeable vertical video feed within the flagship app featuring short-form clips (under three minutes) spanning news, opinion, NYT Cooking, Wirecutter, and The Athletic. The strategic bet is “owned distribution” rather than reliance on third-party platforms or open Web monetisation vulnerable to brand safety blocking. 

The shift reflects broader industry movement toward vertical video. As detailed in previous INMA Advertising Initiative analysis, short-form vertical video represents the biggest overall advertising opportunity to publishers, with 70% of display spend projected to shift to digital video formats by 2028, driving US$146 billion in short-form video ad spend. 

The general consensus is that six- to 10-second vertical video will become the standard display format — in-app and web. News publishers from News Corp Australia to The New York Times have concluded the best chance to win these budgets is enabling advertisers to run their short-form social video assets in publisher-owned channels.

The Times now produces 75 hours of professionally made video monthly, with consumption more than doubling year-over-year and hundreds of millions of minutes streamed monthly. Unlike TikTok or Instagram Reels, the Watch Tab features human editorial curation rather than algorithms, with no likes, comments, or social signals at launch. 

The monetisation strategy follows an “engagement before monetisation” philosophy. Watch launched ad-free, with beta testing for vertical video advertising planned for early 2026. NYT’s approach mirrors their successful Games app strategy, which delivers 80%-90% viewability and significant brand-lift improvements.

Joy Robins, global chief advertising officer, emphasised speed and simplicity: Brands can reuse social assets and launch campaigns within 48 hours rather than enduring lengthy custom build cycles. 

This product-first approach differentiates The Times from broader industry advocacy. Rather than pleading with advertisers to trust that news is safe, they’re building tools that make brand safety concerns obsolete while showcasing lifestyle content (Cooking, Games, Wirecutter, The Athletic) that represents an easier sell than hard news. 

With 11.88 million total subscribers (as of Q2 2025) and a goal of 15 million by 2027, NYT’s advertising business enhances rather than drives the overall business model — allowing for experimentation and patience unavailable to ad-dependent publishers. 

The video strategy signals NYT’s confidence in its ability to innovate around industry constraints rather than wait for industry solutions. As reporting from Semafor indicated, capacity for producing video journalism was a factor in the recent reorganisation of The New York Times culture desk — suggesting the company is making structural commitments to video as core product, not peripheral experiment. 

For news publishers watching NYT’s moves, the lesson isn’t necessarily to replicate their specific product decisions — few have comparable subscription scale or product development resources. But the strategic principle holds: Building owned environments optimised for advertiser needs, particularly around emerging formats like short-form vertical video, represents a path to circumvent brand safety friction entirely. 

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Banner art from Adobestock @Artem Varnitsin.

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