The Atlantic is set to lose another $10 million this year after losing $20 million last year despite a surge in subscriptions during the coronavirus pandemic and 2020 presidential election, according to a new report.
Nicholas Thompson, the chief executive of The Atlantic, gave a presentation to employees last month in which he reported the losses but gave a rosy outlook for 2022 and 2023, NBC News reported on Tuesday, citing slides from the talk.
The 164-year-old magazine is projected to lose just a few million dollars in 2022, Thompson projected, and turn a small profit in 2023, according to NBC News.
“We are on a path to profitability, or sustainability,” Thompson told NBC. “Our losses have narrowed every year. We’re vastly ahead of where we thought we would be.”
The CEO said the magazine needs to make $50 million in annual subscription revenue to break even, an outcome that will be unlikely this year with new subscribers coming in at about a quarter of the rate they did last year: an average of 10,000 a month.
“We did four years of business last year,” Editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg told NBC News. “One of the core challenges is, how do we keep all those new subscribers?”
The culture and politics magazine has made several high-profile hires in recent months, including Tim Alberta, Caitlin Dickerson and Jennifer Senior.
“We are trying––and succeeding, I think––to make The Atlantic the premier home in America for brilliant magazine writing, and Tim and Jen represent crucial additions to our roster of outstanding talent,” Goldberg said in announcing Alberta and Senior’s hire.
The Atlantic did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday regarding the reported revenue shortfalls.