Passes one million digital subscribers
The Times passes one million digital subscribers mark less than four-and-a-half years after launching its metered paywall. The one million figure is on top of the 1.1 million print subscribers who can also access all of the NYT’s content online. Chief executive and president Thomson:
This is a major milestone for our digital consumer business, which we launched in 2011 and has continued a strong and steady growth trajectory. It puts us in a unique position among global news providers. We believe that no other news organization has achieved digital subscriber numbers like ours or comparable digital subscription revenue.
The company also releases second-quarter results showing an 80% year-on-year increase in profits to $16m (£10m), despite a 1.5% fall in revenue to $383m.
NYT articles free on Starbucks app
The New York Times and Starbucks announce that selected NY Times articles will be made free-of-charge to members of the Starbucks loyalty program via the Starbucks App beginning in early 2016. NYT CEO Thompson:
We have enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship with Starbucks and we’re delighted that this arrangement will further extend our digital relationship.
Starbucks CEO Schultz:
We see a future where the Starbucks retail experience seamlessly extends to the mobile devices our millions of customers carry with them every day. Our relationship with the New York Times is the perfect example of bringing this vision to life.
Promoted to CRO
Kopit Levien is promoted to NYT Chief Revenue Officer. She keeps her existing responsibilities as executive vice president and head of advertising, but adds oversight of the company’s consumer businesses including subscription revenue from The Times’ print and digital publishing services. Thompson:
[Since joining the company two years ago Kopit Levien has] transformed our advertising group and presided over great success in our sales efforts. She introduced Paid Posts, a standard setter in native advertising and has been the architect of a remarkable turnaround in digital advertising. I fully expect that she will provide the same sort of leadership to our marketing group. In addition, like with product and technology, I believe that unifying the responsibilities of advertising and marketing under single leadership makes sense and will enable us to more effectively balance the needs and accelerate the progress of both groups.