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The Times Enters Its Post-Text Era

The paper of record is quickly evolving from a lifestyle product into a walled-garden multimedia platform, turning its biggest stars—Ezra, Swan, Maggie—into talking heads, and transforming itself into CNN faster than CNN can become the Times.

Meredith Kopit Levien
In the Meredith Kopit Levien era, the joint really has built a cordon sanitaire of lifestyle products around the newsroom, where consumers come to its hard journalism expecting an audio or video experience. Photo: Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for The New York Times
Dylan Byers
September 5, 2025

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This week, The New York Times announced that it would be shuttering its standalone audio app—a not-at-all-surprising, if a tree falls in a forest development since, I’d hazard to guess, you probably get your Barbaro or Ezra fix on Apple or Spotify. Also, media companies have been tidying up their SKU count since the days of HBO Go and HBO Now. Disney, many predict, will eventually be incentivized to do the same with its bewildering collection of D+, Hulu, ESPN, and eventually Fubo. Yes, the Times has a standalone cooking app, but it long ago shuttered NYT Opinion, which proved to be the final blow in the dusty Andy Rosenthal era. These decisions happen, they’re data-driven, and they’re obvious.