The New York Times saw its stock shoot up this week after it announced strong Q1 results, punctuated by the addition of 308,000 digital subscribers.
The Times’ subscription bump is in large part a product of Donald Trump and the aftermath of the 2016 election. But it’s also the result of a years-long effort the company has made to get its readers to pay for its product, rather than advertisers.
Twenty years ago, advertising revenue made up 63 percent of the paper’s revenues, while subscription revenue accounted for 27 percent. As of Q1, those numbers are nearly inverted: Subscriptions account for 61 percent and advertising represents 33 percent of the top line.
Some of that has happened against the newspaper’s will. The Times’ advertising business peaked in the late ’90s and, like much of the industry, fell off a cliff in the middle of the 2000s.
That decline led to a rash of speculation about the Times’ ability to remain solvent, as well as a high-interest loan from billionaire Carlos Slim in 2009.
But the Times has also made a deliberate choice to ask its readers to fund the company. It introduced a digital pay wall in 2011 and has gradually made its articles harder to read for free (while experimenting with free distributors like Facebook). It worked: The paper now has more than two million digital-only subscribers.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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\r\nFirst, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.\r\n
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\r\nSecond, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. We can’t do that if we have a paywall. \r\n
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Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?
Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple reasons that we can't rely only on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on.
First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.
Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. We can’t do that if we have a paywall.
That’s why we also turn to you, our readers, to help us keep Vox free. If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today?
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