How The New York Times Makes Money
design by jeremiah mcnair and text by tom devoto
For over a decade now, the newspaper industry has been drifting towards extinction. With ad revenue and print circulation dwindling, every local paper in America
has been gutted, swallowed up, or both. The biggest players left standing divide the spoils amongst themselves, even if those spoils aren’t quite what they used to be.
We dove into the numbers to see how the shifting revenue of The New York Times reflects the times (lowercase intended) and what a newspaper has to do to survive.
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Games, Gadgets
& Glazed Carrots
The Grey
Lady’s New Tricks
ADS HAVE
FALLEN AND THEY CAN’T GET UP
Games, Gadgets
& Glazed Carrots
The Old
Guard’s New Tricks
NYT Cooking: Recipes, guides, cooking tutorials, and more. It was spun out as its own app in 2014, but was fully free until 2017.
Wirecutter: A product review
website that is not yet subscription-based, but the NYT is currently
hiring an employee who will help guide that transition.
NYT Crossword: Daily Crossword, Mini Crossword, and other wordplay/pattern games.
Games, Gadgets & Glazed Carrots
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
* digital-only other subscribers, in millions
Revenue
Subscriptions
The Old Guard’s New Tricks
Let the Good Times Roll
2011
2019
2011
$2.3 Billion
overall
2019
in millions
2006
2007
3000 M
100 M
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2.1 B
2 B
1.7 B
1.33 B
1.3 B
954.5 M
711.8 M
666.7 M
662.3 M
638.7 M
580.7 M
558.5 M
530.7 M
558.3 M
Print-Based Bundles
Digital-Only News
Digital-Only Other
Subscriptions
Revenue
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
500K
10M
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II
III
IV
Advertising
Other
Subscription
Advertising
Other
Subscription
$1 Billion
$197.6 Million
$530.6 Million
$941.6 Million
$1.2 Billion
$160 Million
2020
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Once upon a time, people paid to advertise in newspapers. Brands! Real estate! Classifieds! You could find it all in the newspaper. One thing led to another—we’re sure you know the story of Craigslist and Zillow and Fandango by now—and newspaper advertising is a fraction of the business it once was. For papers unable to make up the lost cash (read: just about every local paper in existence), it’s been a fatal trend. Even the Times is experiencing a severe advertising drought, but all hope is not lost yet.
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The Times has a stated goal to make the majority
of its money directly from customers who stay
updated on the news, play the crossword puzzle,
and check out new recipes. In 2015, the newspaper hoped to hit $800 million in digital revenue by 2020,
but because of unprecedented subscription growth,
the Times achieved that goal last year. As of last
month, 6.5 million people subscribe to an NYT
product, an all-time high.
Yes, the majority of NYT subscribers are paying to read the news. But non-news subscriptions for products like Cooking and Crossword are making up a substantial portion of the Times’ overall subscriber base. At 2019’s end, Cooking had over 600,000 subscribers, and Crossword had over 300,000.
In the first six months of 2020, the two combined brought in 600,000 new subscriptions. And although it’s currently free to access, the Times is currently exploring a subscription model for Wirecutter, a product review website it purchased in 2016.
While The New York Times made less money in 2019 than it did in 2011, it’s found a way to salvage the company in an industry where carnage is the standard. Although advertising continues to shrink, the company seems well on its way to achieving its goal of 10 million subscribers by 2025. Its non-news apps and its other digital products, like its podcasts and television programming, represent immense opportunity in the coming years. So while the Times is changing, it’s not going anywhere.
Go Deeper
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2M
2B
Print-Based Bundles
Digital-Only News
Digital-Only Other
1B
Print Other
0
2M
2017
Revenue
-- $14
million
2019 Revenue
-- $34 million
-- more than
2x in 2 years
Ads Have Fallen & They Can’t Get Up
Go Deeper
ADS HAVE
FALLEN AND THEY CAN’T GET UP
Let the Good Times Roll
Let the Good Times Roll
NEXT CHAPTER
NEXT CHAPTER
$1.8 Billion
overall
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IV
Although advertising revenues has been slashed by more than half since 2011, a jump in subscription revenue will sustain the New York Times long-term.
The NYT has over 6 million subscribers. The next closest in the United States?
The Wall Street Journal, which just recently cracked the 2 million mark.
Burgeoning sources of revenue in the past decade, the Times' "other"
subscriptions have gone from zero to $34 million in just a matter of years.
Advertising revenues have taken a monumental
hit in the past 15 years—ads now generate about a quarter of what they did in 2006.
Although advertising revenues has been slashed by more than half since 2011, a jump in subscription revenue will sustain the New York Times long-term.
The NYT has over 6 million subscribers. The next closest in the United States? The Wall Street Journal, which just recently cracked the 2 million mark.
Burgeoning sources of revenue in the past decade,
the Times' "other" subscriptions have gone from zero to $34 million in just a matter of years.
Games, Gadgets
& Glazed Carrots
The Old
Guard’s New Tricks
Let the Good Times Roll
ADS HAVE
FALLEN AND THEY CAN’T GET UP
III
II
IV
I
The Old
Guard’s New Tricks
$1.8 Billion
overall
Advertising revenues have taken a monumental hit in the past 15 years—ads now
generate about a quarter of what they did in 2006.