There are just a few main elements to The New York Occasions’ digital subscription progress technique: reaching new subscribers, bettering retention, and rising subscription income.
The technique within the fast is centered round a brand new subscription tier, launching right now, Ben Cotton, The New York Occasions’ head of subscriber progress, advised Digiday.
The New York Occasions will start providing a household subscription on Monday, permitting as much as 4 individuals (they are often pals, too) to affix one plan to get entry to information and non-news merchandise (equivalent to Video games, Cooking and The Athletic). It prices $30, $5 greater than an All Entry subscription to the Occasions. Present subscribers may improve to this plan.
Subscription bundles have been the driving pressure behind The New York Occasions’ digital subscription progress. In a latest earnings name, New York Occasions CEO Meredith Kopit Levien stated at the very least 50% of its subscribers are paying for a bundled subscription or for a number of product subscriptions, “which is essential as a result of these subscribers have interaction extra, keep longer and pay extra over time,” she stated.
The Occasions added 230,000 internet new digital subscribers within the second quarter of 2025, bringing its complete subscriber base to 11.9 million — over one million extra subscribers than it had the identical quarter final 12 months. Its complete digital-only common income per consumer (ARPU) grew 3.2% 12 months over 12 months to $9.64, and bundle and multi-product ARPU elevated 4.7% 12 months over 12 months.
Receive extra income per subscriber
For the brand new household plan, every consumer receives their very own login to allow them to save their very own articles, recipes, procuring guides and recreation stats. They’ll additionally subscribe to newsletters and comply with sports activities groups. The household subscription is just not in contrast to household plans supplied by streaming and music apps like Netflix and Spotify.
“Household subscriptions in some ways is the largest change to our subscription construction in various years,” Cotton stated.
The Occasions can be providing a household plan for as much as 4 individuals round its Video games product for $10 a month, $4 greater than a person Video games subscription.
This technique might assist develop the Occasions’ registrations — particularly with youthful audiences who won’t need to pay for their very own subscription however would be a part of a household plan, famous Matt Lindsay, CEO and founding father of Mather Economics, a agency that helps publishers develop shopper income methods.
Registered customers may also be monetized in different methods, utilizing profile information to serve them focused promoting or customized procuring guides, Lindsay added. The Occasions has 150 million registered customers.
The household plan drives extra income when subscribers improve to this plan reasonably than a singular subscription.
Cotton stated the Occasions has discovered that one of the best methods to get subscribers to improve to the bundle is so as to add worth by including extra merchandise to the providing, and provides a “whole lot” to check out the bundle earlier than stepping subscribers as much as the higher-priced providing, in addition to elevating costs over time, Cotton stated.
Over the previous few years, the Occasions has added non-news merchandise like Cooking (recipes), Wirecutter (procuring guides) Video games and The Athletic (sports activities) to beef up its bundled digital subscription providing.
Broaden the subscriber base
The brand new subscription providing can usher in new subscribers invited to affix the plan by a good friend or member of the family.
The Occasions’ new providing is a part of its broader strategic aim to achieve 15 million subscribers by the tip of 2027 — as effectively subscription bundles with different publishers, like a latest one between the Occasions and The Economist within the U.Ok.
“The Occasions might be betting this can develop incremental subscriptions that they wouldn’t in any other case get,” Lindsay stated.
The chance with providing this new subscription tier is cannibalization. Present subscribers would possibly cancel and be a part of a household plan as a substitute.
However Cotton stated in checks and modeling, this can probably be a “comparatively small factor in comparison with the advantages.” However it is going to be one thing the Occasions will proceed to watch, he added.
The most important problem to attending to that 15 million milestone is “the precise factor that we did to get the final 100 subscribers, won’t be the factor to get the following 100 subscribers,” Cotton stated. Meaning yearly or so, the Occasions has to search out new methods to achieve new subscribers.
That additionally means disposing of methods that aren’t essentially working. Subsequent month, The New York Occasions is sunsetting its standalone audio app, which it launched in Might 2023. In a Occasions workers memo shared with Digiday, chief product officer Alex Hardiman and deputy managing editor Sam Dolnick stated audio programming was turning into so core to the Occasions’ protection that it was being folded into its important information app. Engagement with each video and audio within the information app has nearly doubled over the previous 12 months, they wrote.
“Unifying all of our storytelling codecs into the information app is prime to our important subscription technique, making our journalism extra accessible to extra individuals,” they wrote.
Cotton declined to touch upon whether or not this determination was additionally pushed by not sufficient subscribers utilizing the audio app.
Retain current subscribers
Lastly, the household subscription is geared toward bettering retention.
“We predict {that a} subscriber who has three different individuals on a household subscription is far much less prone to cancel than somebody who’s subscribed only for themselves, as a result of if you concentrate on it, meaning you’re not simply canceling on your self, you’re canceling entry for 3 different individuals on the identical time,” Cotton stated.
Cotton declined to share the Occasions’ churn charges, however stated they’re “wholesome.” Key to managing churn is creating participating merchandise that readers see the worth of paying for many times, but in addition protecting them engaged with these merchandise a number of instances per week or day — ideally with a couple of Occasions product, he added.
“We produce lots of journalism every single day. We have now various video games now. We have now lots of recipes,” Cotton stated. “We’re all the time looking for issues that subscribers may need missed, that they could be occupied with, to achieve out to them with.”
