The New York Times Company said Wednesday that it added about 180,000 pure digital-only subscribers in the second quarter of this year, but that digital advertising revenue has declined.
The Times currently has 9.17 million paying subscribers. The goal is 15 million by the end of 2027.
The company’s adjusted operating income was $76 million, down 18% from the year-ago quarter. Total revenue he had was $555.7 million, an increase of 11.5% for him over the previous year. Digital subscriptions accounted for his $238.7 million in that revenue, up 25.5%.
The hit to operating income was largely due to losses at Athletic, a sports news website that The Times acquired in February for $550 million. The Athletic’s adjusted operating loss for the April-June quarter was $12.6 million, down from about $19.4 million in the first quarter.
Times Company president and CEO Meredith Kopit Levien said in a statement:
The Times reported 9.107 million subscribers at the end of the first quarter of 2022. That number was revised to 9.01 million in this quarter’s results.
A key part of The Times’ strategy is to differentiate between subscribers and subscribers. A single subscriber may subscribe to multiple company products, such as The Athletic, Cooking, and Wirecutter. The Times is betting on bundling its news reports with digital services to reach new audiences with diverse interests.
According to Levien, the second quarter saw a record number of new subscribers across all digital access tiers, including The Times News Report, Gaming, Cooking, Wirecutters and The Athletic.
Net income of 180,000 digital-only subscribers increased 70% from Q2 2021. The company added more to his 418,000 in the first quarter of this year, but that was mostly his one-off increase from The Athletic. The sports site added a net addition of 50,000 standalone subscribers in the most recent quarter.
The majority of The Times subscribers pay for digital-only access. Print subscriber numbers continued to decline in the second quarter, dropping nearly 7% from the year-ago quarter to about 761,000.
The Times Company’s fourth-quarter digital advertising revenue fell 2.4% from the year-ago quarter to $69.3 million as marketers cut spending in the face of economic uncertainty. Print advertising rebounded 15.1% from the same quarter last year to $48.1 million as the entertainment and luxury categories began to recover from the pandemic.
Total operating costs increased 19.6% to $504 million. The company also noted his $34.2 million gain from the sale of land at The Times printing facility in College Point, Queens.
The company said it expects third-quarter digital subscription revenue to grow 21-25% year-over-year. He expects total ad revenue to remain flat or decline slightly over that period, and adjusted operating costs to increase by 9-13%.
