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The Los Angeles Times expects its core news business to break even in 2026, a company spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal, after it lost about $5 million in 2025.
The numbers would represent a marked turnaround for the news operation after years of financial losses and layoffs. The company reported $237 million in revenue in 2024, down from more than $300 million in 2022 and more than $500 million in 2019, a year after billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong purchased the paper, according to the Journal. The Times’ parent company, the Los Angeles Times Media Group, lost $48.1 million before taxes in 2024.
Soon-Shiong has said he wanted to raise up to $500 million to take the Times’ parent company — which also includes LA Times Studios, NantStudios and NantGames — public by 2027, though he hedged that plan to the Journal. “We’ll see what happens by next year,” he said, though he said he has “turned it around” and isn’t looking to sell the paper.
A Times spokesperson did not respond to an immediate request for comment.
The Times’ parent company revealed in a pitch deck to potential investors that it has “incurred operating losses in the past, may incur operating losses in the future, and may not achieve or maintain profitability in the future.”
Soon-Shiong said last year the paper was at “a place of efficiency,” and revealed his plans to take the newspaper public last July in an interview with Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show.”
The billionaire’s stewardship has come under scrutiny, especially after ordering the paper to cancel its endorsement of Kamala Harris ahead of the 2024 election; he later revamped the opinion section.
Soon-Shiong also launched an expanded network of projects bearing the paper’s name under its parent company, including a creator platform and a streaming and events business, and he has also appeared alongside conservatives including President Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly.
“I want us to speak on behalf of all Americans,” Soon-Shiong told the Journal.
The post LA Times Projects News Business to Break Even in 2026 appeared first on TheWrap.
