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The New York Times now has more than 10 million subscribers, the company said Wednesday, moving closer to its goal of 15 million by the end of 2027.
In its third-quarter report, The New York Times Company said it added a net 210,000 digital subscribers in the three months through September, totaling 9.41 million, along with 670,000 print subscribers.
The Times Company has focused on getting subscribers to sign up for more than one of its offerings, including its core news report, Cooking, Games, the Wirecutter review site and the sports news site The Athletic. Nearly 3.8 million of its 9.41 million digital subscribers subscribe to at least two products, the company said.
Meredith Kopit Levien, the company’s president and CEO, said in a statement that the third-quarter results showed that The Times’ “multi-product bundle” performed well and would “help us continue on our path to building a larger, more profitable business . ”
The Times Company had adjusted operating profit of $89.8 million for the quarter, up 30.1 percent from a year earlier. Total revenue was $598.3 million, an increase of 9.3 percent from a year earlier.
The Athletic, which bought the Times Company for $550 million in early 2022, posted an adjusted operating loss of $7.9 million for the quarter, an improvement from a loss of $12.1 million a year earlier. The Athletic has lost approximately $68 million since the acquisition. Times executives said at the time of the deal that they expected it would take three years for The Athletic to become profitable.
The Athletic’s quarterly revenue grew 45.8 percent year over year to $34.4 million, thanks to an increase in subscribers and the introduction of display advertising, The Times said.
The Times closed its sports bureau in September and reporters and editors have moved to other departments within the organization. Content from The Athletic, which is managed separately from The Times newsroom, is now used in The Times’ print and digital reporting.
Despite a challenging advertising environment across the industry, The Times posted a 6.7 percent increase in digital ad revenue year-over-year to $75 million, helped in part by new ad sales for The Athletic. Total advertising revenue rose 6 percent to $117.1 million.
The Times, like other newspapers, has seen a steady decline in its print subscriber base. 70,000 were lost last year.
For the final quarter of this year, the company expects total subscription revenue to increase 8 to 11 percent on an adjusted basis from a year ago, while it expects a single-digit percentage increase in digital advertising revenue.
