In a competitive back and forth, The Wall Street Journal has announced the debut next month of a special New York Metro edition that could result in greater outreach to the luxury and arts markets. Meanwhile, 
The New York Times has responded with an announcement of their new “Numbers” ad campaign meant to demonstrate to advertisers it’s unique influence on the same demographic.
David Kaplan, of paidContent, reports “The campaign …will run for six weeks across print, out-of-home and online. The stats on the campaign’s microsite, NYT Audience, are culled from market researcher Scarborough and attempt to show that the NYT has nearly twice as many affluent readers, roughly three times as many New York-based online users and significantly higher female print readership.” The NYT also is working hard to point out that the paper and its website are particularly popular among women, business professionals and art enthusiasts in the New York market. In other words, the WSJ has a lot of catching up to do in those areas, if its New York-centric edition stands a chance.
Since the NYT and the WSJ will be competing for more advertising from museums, galleries, auction houses and other cultural institutions, it may be that they will be expected to widen cultural news coverage as well. This could provide the city’s arts industry with an additional, high profile avenues with which to reach more affluent audiences. It could also result in discounts in ad rates from both papers as they compete to for finite marketing dollars among local luxury ad repositories such as New York and The New Yorker magazines. More details in the press release
The Art Machine 