New York Times Adds 420K Digital Subscribers as Revenue Grows
Nov 05, 2026The publisher is growing its digital subscription business while changes in how people discover news put pressure on traditional sources of traffic.
The New York Times added 420,000 net digital-only subscribers in the third quarter, up from 280,000 in the previous quarter. Digital-only subscription revenue increased 14.6% from a year earlier to $421.3 million. Subscriber additions were stronger than in the second quarter but remained below the 460,000 reported a year earlier.
The growth comes as publishers face continued changes in how people find news online. The Times has acknowledged that decisions by major technology companies are reducing traffic to publishers, including its own business, although it hasn't disclosed the size of that decline.
Subscriber Growth and Pricing
The Times ended September with 13.76 million reported subscribers, including 13.22 million digital-only subscribers.
Under the company's reporting method, a Family subscription counts as one billed subscriber plus one additional reported subscriber. Group subscriptions follow a separate calculation that doesn't necessarily correspond to individual paid accounts. As a result, reported subscriber additions don't necessarily equal the number of new paying accounts.
Average revenue per digital-only subscriber was $9.93 per 28-day billing period, up 1.4% from a year earlier and nearly unchanged from $9.94 in the previous quarter.
CFO Will Bardeen said customers moving from promotional offers to regular prices helped lift revenue, along with price increases for existing subscribers. The mix of subscriptions also affected the average. A relatively large share of lower-priced single-product subscriptions held down revenue per subscriber during the quarter, even as the company continued adding customers.
Building Engagement Across Products
The Times has spent years developing a subscription business that extends beyond news. Games, Cooking and The Athletic give customers different ways to use its products and reasons to return.
CEO Meredith Kopit Levien credited engagement and retention across the company's offerings as contributors to its performance. The publisher has continued investing in journalism and digital features, including an AI-supported Cooking tool that helps users adapt recipes, new subscriber-only puzzles and expanded video programming.
Management believes these investments support engagement and retention, but hasn't disclosed how much individual products or features contributed to subscriber growth during the quarter.
Growing as News Discovery Changes
During the November 4 earnings call, Levien acknowledged that changes made by major technology companies are reducing traffic to publishers, including the Times. She did not quantify the company's own traffic losses or say how much they affected its financial results.
The Times has emphasized building relationships that bring customers directly to its products. Its investments in journalism and additional subscription offerings are intended to encourage people to return regularly, without depending entirely on traffic from outside platforms.
Digital advertising revenue increased 12% to approximately $109.9 million during the quarter. Management didn't attribute that performance to changes in AI search or disclose how declining referral traffic affected advertising revenue.
Total company revenue rose 9.7% to $768.5 million, while adjusted operating profit increased 13.9% to $149.6 million.
Insider Take
The New York Times has spent years building a subscription business that gives people reasons to return beyond reading the news. Those investments were made long before the latest changes in how people find content online.
That's becoming increasingly relevant as publishers lose some control over how audiences reach them. The Times acknowledges that changes by major technology companies are affecting its traffic, yet its digital subscription business continues growing.
We don't know how much referral traffic the Times has lost or how much its subscription strategy is helping offset that pressure. But the company is an example of what sustained investment in direct customer relationships can look like, especially when the channels publishers once relied on are becoming less predictable.
Related Member Resources
The Times is adding subscribers while the paths people use to discover news are changing. These resources help subscription operators assess their dependence on search and better understand what keeps customers returning after they subscribe.
- Post-SEO Subscriber Acquisition Playbook: Build Growth Beyond Search
A practical process for measuring search dependency, developing direct customer relationships and evaluating the subscribers new channels bring in.
- Why Subscribers Stay: How Retention Drivers Differ From Acquisition Drivers
A guide to understanding what originally attracted subscribers and what makes them continue using and renewing a service.
Sources
Reported by:
