Meredith Kopit Levien: Yes, good morning. I think the most important thing to say is just what I said in my prepared remarks, which is that demand, we’re feeling demand pick up in Q2 and you see that in the guide. And I’ll also say we are going to be sort of rolling out more ad supply continuously for the rest of the year. So we’re bringing the high performing ad products to places in our portfolio, where we’re seeing a lot of marketer demand, seeing that demand really grow like the games app and sports. And when I say, high performing ad products, I mean premium canvases with first-party data. We are still in a process of extending that to other parts of the portfolio with kind of more ahead than behind us. And that really makes the sort of pickup in demand, plus that.
And then just the kind of broad appeal of The Times with multiple places for marketers to get a message out and multiple ways for marketers to put a big idea into the world. All of that gives us optimism in the ad business.
Vasily Karasyov: Thank you. And would it be fair to…
Meredith Kopit Levien: Let me add one more beat, which maybe with just the ads are efficacious. They work those premium canvases and first-party data are high performing in the context of a publisher ad offering. So we have a lot of confidence in them.
Vasily Karasyov: Thank you. And a quick follow-up. Would it be fair to say that the high performing ads, what you refer to as high performing ads, that they have much higher CPMs than display that you call out in the release?
Meredith Kopit Levien: The way we think about it, the sort of core of the digital ad business that we’ve been talking about for years now is premium ad canvases. We have an ad unit called Flex Frame, which is like a large canvas unit that can do a lot of different things. And that plus targeting with our first-party data, which we’ve been building for years now, is sort of the core of the business that’s what we’re talking about, that’s bought a lot of different ways. Mostly, directly, some programmatically, but that’s what we’re referring to and that is generally a high CPM business in the context of the publishing industry.
Anthony DiClemente: Thanks, Vasily. Operator, we’ll take our next question please.
Operator: Our next question comes from Thomas Yeh from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead with your question.
Thomas Yeh: Thanks so much. Yes, just following up on the bundled graduation question. Can you help us just think through the cadence of the wave of eligible cohorts that are coming up for graduation? I think Will, you mentioned some greater back half opportunity on ARPU, just to kind of put a finer point on it. Is it right to interpret your comment as the year-over-year growth on subscriber ARPU should pick up in speed in the second half?
William Bardeen: So, Thomas, a couple of points there. I think that the only sort of color I’d say on sort of bundled cadence is that the cohorts are just getting bigger through the course of the year. So we’re just seeing more and more coming through. And then, as you know, we don’t guide on ARPU. I think there are a couple of things that I mentioned that are just giving us general confidence in what we have targeted, which is essentially modest year-over-year growth in total digital only ARPU. And those two things are that the experience we’ve been seeing so far on the bundled step ups is encouraging, retention and monetization. So, as that plays out with bigger and bigger cohorts, that’s one of the things that is giving us confidence in ARPU trajectory.
And then the second, as we mentioned single product subscribers and this is something that as we think overtime is also giving us a confidence, which is the increasing amount of engagement that Meredith has highlighted. And as we’ve found in the pattern, the more engagement that gives us pricing over — pricing opportunities over time and also as a tailwinds monetization. So with those two among several levers, we feel good about the ARPU trajectory given the target we’ve sort of put out there the expectation for modest year-over-year ARPU expansion.
Thomas Yeh: Okay, makes sense. I mean on the standalone pricing front, I think last year you kind of pulled a lever for more of the tenured subs. Is it safe to say that there potentially is more appetite for that given the success of that rollout and the engagement that you spoke to?
William Bardeen: I think it’s safe to say that as we continue to add value into the products and see that value reflected in increasing levels of engagement, meaning consumers are really experiencing that value. We’re always looking at pricing and that’s something that as a lever you should just continue to expect us to look at, and use as a way to continue to improve monetization over time.
Anthony DiClemente: Great. Thanks so much, Thomas. Operator, next question please.
Operator: Our next question comes from Doug Arthur from Huber Research Partners. Please go ahead with your question.
Douglas Arthur: Yes, good morning. Will, I was struck by the sales and marketing being down, I don’t know 6% or something in the quarter. And your comment that the funnel of the organic traffic is driving more of the growth. Is that something, I mean obviously we’ve seen that before with NYT. Is that something you think the 2024 will benefit for the rest of the year? And then I got a follow-up.
