How much of a threat does The Wall Street Journal's New York metro section, still unconfirmed but now expected this April, pose to The New York Times? Two big accounts that may have the Grey Lady concern: Bloomingdale's and Bergdorf Goodman. The retailers will each advertise in WSJ's New York section. Both stores traditionally spend far more in the Times than in the Journal: Bloomingdale's, for example, spent $17.9 million in the Times last year while devoting less than $1 million to the Journal, according to estimates from Kantar Media.
Bloomingdale's operates stores around the country, and the Times has a healthy national distribution -- so it's not clear that it's just the paper's strong city distribution feeding that disparity. But Bloomies also has many stores concentrated in the New York area, so when it's time to advertise in that particular region, which it does, the Journal's Metro section may give the chain a reason to reexamine its allocation of spending.