The New York Times reported Wednesday that the company (The New York Times Company) generated $709 million in digital revenue in the year 2018.
From The New York Times:
More than 3.3 million people pay for the company’s digital products, including its news, crossword and food apps, a 27 percent jump from 2017. The total number of paid subscriptions for digital and print reached 4.3 million, a high.
Online subscription revenue gained nearly 18 percent to reach $400 million in 2018, while digital advertising rose 8.6 percent, to $259 million. In the last three months of the year, digital subscription sales grew at a slower pace, about 9 percent, to $105 million. That slowdown came partly as a result of marketing efforts to draw more paying readers. The Times has offered introductory discounts for online access, which attracts new readers who bring in less revenue. Over time, the company expects many of them to become full subscribers.
The Times added 265,000 new digital subscribers in the fourth quarter, the biggest jump since the so-called Trump bump after the 2016 election. About 172,000 of those subscribers signed on for the core news product, while the rest were drawn by digital-only products like Crossword and Cooking.
The company hit another revenue milestone: Digital advertising surpassed print advertising for the first time, jumping 23 percent to $103 million in the fourth quarter. Print advertising fell 10 percent, to $88 million.
The Times also reports the company added 120 newsroom employees, "bringing the total number of journalists at The Times to 1,600, the largest count in its history."
"Our appeal to subscribers — and to the world’s leading advertisers — depends more than anything on the quality of our journalism," Mark Thompson, the chief executive, said in a statement. "That is why we have increased, rather than cut back, our investment in our newsroom and opinion departments. We want to accelerate our digital growth further, so in 2019, we will direct fresh investment into journalism, product and marketing."
Right now, readers can subscribe to The Times for $1 a week. That gets you unlimited access to all articles on any device. However, that's just for the first four weeks of a subscription. The basic subscription cost is $3.75 a week. That means you would be billed $4 for the first four weeks, then $15 every four weeks after that.