New York Times reports 350,000 additional digital subscribers

The New York Times added 350,000 digital-only subscribers in the last quarter, the company said on Feb 5, pushing the total subscriber count to more than 11.4 million.

The new subscribers helped increase overall revenue to US$726.6 million (S$985 million) in the last three months of 2024, up 7.5 per cent from a year earlier.

Annual revenue for 2024 was US$2.6 billion, up from US$2.4 billion in 2023. Adjusted operating profit for the fourth quarter increased 10.7 per cent, to US$170.5 million. Adjusted operating profit for the full year was US$455.4 million, up 16.8 per cent from 2023.

Ms Meredith Kopit Levien, the chief executive of The New York Times, said in a statement that the quarter “capped another strong year for the Times”.

“Altogether, this momentum gives us confidence that we can deliver another year of healthy growth in subscribers, revenue and profitability, as well as strong free cash flow,” she added.

The Times added more than 1.1 million net digital-only subscribers in 2024, the company said, and continued to increase the number of those who were subscribed to more than one Times product. The company offers news reports, recipes, games, the Wirecutter product review site and The Athletic, a sports news site.

Subscription revenue grew 8.4 per cent to US$466.6 million in the fourth quarter, driven by an increase from digital-only products.

Total advertising revenue in the quarter was largely flat at US$165.1 million, with digital advertising revenue up 9.5 per cent year over year and print advertising revenue down 16.4 per cent.

Although the number of digital subscribers continues to increase, the number of print subscribers to the Times is declining fast. It fell to 610,000 at the end of 2024, down from 660,000 at the end of 2023 and 730,000 at the end of 2022.

Operating costs grew 6 per cent to US$580 million for the quarter.

The Times said it spent US$10.8 million in 2024 on litigation costs relating to a copyright infringement lawsuit it filed in December 2023 against OpenAI and Microsoft.

The company had US$911.9 million in cash and marketable securities at the end of 2024, it said, up from US$709.2 million at the end of 2023.

The Times said on Feb 5 that its board had approved a new US$350 million class A share repurchase programme. It also announced a quarterly dividend of 18 US cents a share, up five US cents from the previous quarter.

The company said it expected digital-only subscription revenue in the current quarter to increase up to 17 per cent from a year ago, with digital advertising revenue rising in the high single digits. NYTIMES