The New York Times can thank an uptick in subscribers — specifically digital subscribers — for its positive earnings report last week.
The Times’ digital subscription effort, at first controversial, is now its most important source of revenue growth and shows how it can become a digital-only publisher.
TSo how is its digital business doing overall? For the past six years, Times’ digital revenue (subscribers and ads) more than doubled to $442 million. Print-only revenue fell 18 percent to just over $1 billion in the same period. In 2015 Times’ leadership announced that they aimed to hit $800 million in overall digital revenue by 2020 — a goal that will be difficult at best.
RMost of the digital gains are coming from digital subscribers. From 2011 to 2016, money from people who only pay for its online version rose more than five times, or 418 percent, to $233 million....
The digital divide is narrowing and digital revenue arrives just in time.