Good Times
Shares in the New York Times Company jumped some 6% on Wednesday after the media giant reported that it had passed the 10 million subscriber mark, creeping closer to its target of hitting 15 million subs by 2027, with sales also up 9.3% year-over-year.
The NYT, like the Financial Times, saw print subscriptions slump in the last quarter — though the 172-year-old paper more than made up for this drop by adding over 800,000 digital-only readers / gamers / sports fans in the last year, as it continues to refresh its offerings. A booming subscriber business leaves the NYT less exposed to the fickle nature of advertising, which accounted for less than 20% of its revenue in Q3.
The Times it is a-changin'
The Gray Lady’s certainly growing old gracefully, thanks to a few acquisitions in recent years: it picked up trendy sports outlet The Athletic in January 2022, for example, and bought the viral — if fading — game Wordle in the same month. Forays into dedicated cooking, online games, and consumer recommendation products (like Wirecutter) have helped to broaden the digital appeal of the news org — a strategy that CEO Meredith Kopit Levien labels “multiproduct bundles”.
