Edited by: TJVNews.com
As media conglomerates continue to struggle with staying afloat in an internet era when print media is on its way to becoming obsolete, on Wednesday, the New York Times on said it added 142,000 paid digital-only subscriptions last quarter, 65,000 of which were for its non-core news products, like cooking, games and audio, according to a report on Axios.com.
The Axios report indicated that this represents the highest percentage of non-core news subscriptions that The Times has added in its history of digital subscribers. In order to offset news cycle turbulence the “Paper of Record” has, in recent years, focused more heavily into non-news products.
Just as former President Donald Trump had cautioned during his 2020 campaign for re-election, the news industry would suffer a massive blow in terms of readers and viewers because the press would have nothing of substance to write about in the new administration that would interest readers after he left office.
According to the Axios report, the New York Times has seen significant slumps in web traffic that has coincided with the Biden administration. In the last quarter, the number of new subscriptions saw the slowest growth in two years. Speaking to Axios, CEO Meredith Kopit Levien acknowledged this by saying in a statement: “We believe that while the news cycle will continue to have significant effects on our subscription growth, we are increasing our control over the levers of our subscription model.” They are considering the usage of pay meters in more sophisticated ways.
According to a NYT report on August 4th, Levien said in the statement that the company’s performance was “a testament to the success of our strategy” of focusing on digital subscriptions. She put the potential market size of Times readers at 100 million, adding that there was an opportunity to continue to invest while “daily habits are up for grabs.”
The report went on to say that at the end of June, the Times had 7.9 million total subscribers, with 7.1 million paying for its digital products. Of the digital subscribers, 5.3 million subscribed to the News app.
The company reported $93 million in adjusted operating profit on $499 million in revenue, beating estimates. Investors were looking for $73 million in adjusted operating profit on $488 million in sales. The stock jumped at the market open, rising as high as 12 percent, before ending the day up 7.65 percent.
Axios.com reported that the Grey Lady added 142,000 total net new paid digital subscriptions last year, with 46% (65,000) going to cooking, games and audio products and 54% (77,000) going towards core news products. The Times beat its previous record of non-core news subscription adds from last quarter, which was 44%. But it added fewer total subscriptions.
The Times says it now has more than 8 million paid subscriptions across its digital and print products. It’s well on its way to reaching its long-stated goal of having at least 10 million paid digital-only subscribers by 2025. The Times says it expects that there are 100 million people willing to pay for news in English, according to the Axios report.
