The New York Times added 300,000 paid digital subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2023, which is more than it added during any quarter for the previous year, it announced on Wednesday.
The company now has a total of 9.7 million paying customers across its suite of digital products, which includes News, Games, Cooking, Wirecutter, and The Athletic.
Year-over-year revenue from digital subscriptions grew by 12. 7% in 2023 to reach a total of $1.09 billion, while revenue from digital advertising decreased by 3.5% during the same period. Total digital-only average revenue per user (ARPU) grew 3.5% year-over-year to $9.24, primarily as a result of subscribers graduating from promotional rates and price hikes for longer-tenured subscribers.
The Times’ subscription strategy is now firmly oriented around converting as many bundle subscribers as possible with low-priced introductory rates and ratcheting up pricing from there. The company has now stopped marketing its news-only product and is pushing most new subscribers towards its “all access” bundle instead.
Its earnings illustrate how heavily it’s now pushing its audience towards bundle subscriptions. Average revenue per user for bundle and multiproduct subscribers has declined consistently over the past six consecutive quarters as it continues to offer attractive introductory rates, down to $12.13 in Q4 of 2023 from $15.20 in the same quarter in 2022.
It’s succeeded in growing ARPU significantly from subscribers to its core news product over the same period, however, increasing from $8.49 in Q4 2022 to $10.38 in Q4 2023.