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The New York Times announced it now has 130 million monthly readers and 3.5 million paid subscriptions, which is more than double the company’s subscriber count since Q3 2015.
The growth in paid subscriptions is notable as it helps the company stem against declining print ad revenue, which fell 20% and drove a 9% decrease in total ad revenue for the company in Q3 2017.
The company plans to sustain subscriber growth by becoming stricter with its paywall.The New York Times now only lets nonsubscribers read five articles per month, half the amount of the 10 article limit in place prior to December, before readers are asked to subscribe, Bloomberg reports. This represents the company’s first paywall adjustment in five years. Twenty-six percent of people in the US who regularly use free news sources said they might pay for news if required, according to a study by the American Press Institute, which implies the new paywall won’t necessarily drive away readers.
Additionally, a recent policy change by Google should help The New York Times see increased traffic, which could also result in more subscriptions. Google just ended its “First Click Free” policy, which penalized publishers that instituted paywalls by ranking them lower in search results. The removal of this policy will help improve The Times’ organic search rankings, potentially translating into more subscriptions. This would put the company further along on its goal to reach 10 million subscribers, though that milestone may still be a long way off.
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