Working on the Times media desk has for the last few years seemed like a rough and thankless job, and certainly the last few people there reporting on print media seemed like they were more than a bit unhappy. (Or were at least phoning it in.) Which is to say, we are not here to express rancor about today's media desk report: "In the six months ended Sept. 30, The Times had the second-largest paid subscription Web site among newspapers behind The Wall Street Journal’s 537,469 subscribers, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations."
Ooh, second-best newspaper! Great! So... how many paid digital subscribers does the paper have? Well....
First they put up a wrong number, which, hey, it happens. (From the correction: "The number provided — 390,000 — included digital subscriptions to The International Herald Tribune, which were offered beginning in November. (That figure has been deleted.)" (Others have noted that there were four errors in the story.)
And then... that number wasn't replaced. I see.
From the press release on the quarterly and year-end earnings: "As of quarter end, paid subscribers to all of the Company's digital subscription packages, e-readers and replica editions totaled about 406,000." But that's all of the papers—like, including the Boston Globe. (Which at least tells us that the (very pretty) Boston Globe did not get a lot of subscribers real fast!) And what's the "unsubscribe" rate, anyway? Are these all subscribers, or initial subscribers? How much turn-over is there? Dunno.
Would you like more detail? Sure you would, why else are you reading such boring media business things? Here: "The New York Times sold about 43,000 paid subscriptions to its Web site in the third quarter, which is down from the 224,000 it sold in the paywall’s first full three months of operation in the spring."
And the quarter four numbers are.... to be revealed shortly.
I was actually wondering about this, so thanks.
@HiredGoons I have been wondering about this too. I got a free digital subscription through 2011 (from a Lincoln Town Car ad on the nytimes site around April last year) and once that expired I didn't pay to subscribe. I read about 20 articles per day on nytimes.com, so I just clear the cookies and temporary files once I've reached the limit and it resets. (I wouldn't read so much on there but sooo many sites, including The Awl, are blocked at work for me, and our internet browsing is tracked so I stick to the news.)
From 224,000 to 43,000: ouch.
@Ralph Haygood Completely normal dropoff for a subscription-based sales model. Also see Lockheed Ventura's comment below.
The times when I'm presented with the notion and benefit of a digital subscription - ie., when I'm reading through news and clicking some link - are exactly NOT the times I'm usually prepared to get out my wallet and my credit card and buy something online, unless like I REALLY REALLY want to read that story (which to date has happened 0 times, at least for me).
Maybe if the Times, WSJ, etc. had some sort of EZ-Pass-like system for digital media subscriptions that stored my credentials and CC info and reduced the act of purchasing access to a single click and a single login across many sites, I'd be more likely to buy access rather than just find an equivalent article somewhere else.
Whenever I get the "You've read your 20 free articles," I just put the title of the article in Google and then I can open it up from there for free. It takes like 3 seconds. Am I not supposed to be doing this?
Yeah... Clearly the digital paywall strategy really unclear as to whether it's working or not...
The New York Times Media Group. Let's take a look at the results from the only paper which had a paywall up during the entire quarter. (Boston started late)
Advertising $234,660 -3.8%
Circulation $183,032 7.9%
Other $25,260 -6.9%
Total $442,952 0.5%
Hmmm... Golly. It would seem that THE FUCKING PAPER GREW REVENUE AND IT ALL CAME FROM THE FUCKING PAYWALL.
Obviously digital sales are going to be greatest when first launched as dedicated customers who use NYTimes.com on a daily basis will sign up once access is put behind the paywall.
I think the proper way to view the digital paywall is that it exists to slow further deterioration of paper circulation. The majority of advertising revenue still comes from paper circulation, and by giving digital access to all paper circulation subscribers, the Times is attempting to keep paper circulation numbers up. The digital subscription is priced rather high to "nudge" consumers into the paper subscription option.
The whole thing is, if you'll excuse my potty-mouth, a crock of shit. I pay and it's pointless. Ads all over the iPad, buggy apps for iPhone/iPad, a stupid rule that requires Facebook (!?!??!?!) to become an authenticated commenter, and no improvement on any of the things wrong with the standard browser edition (blogs taking precedence actual news, all the swipey-slidey twitter feeds and ajax slide-ups distracting me into clicking to the next page before I read this one, and the terrible redesign of some sections with a personalized masthead at the top ... but no way to nav to a different section w/out backing out or scrolling all over town).
They sure did respond fast though when I wrote in asking how to end my initial complimentary subscription and start paying something.
I'd love 30 minutes with David Carr for his thoughts. I've obviously thought about it too much.
When you started talking about the Times paywall, I thought you meant The Times of Knife Crime City, which has also recently released an unpopular paywall. It just goes to show.
I know there are ways around the paywall, but I gave my wife a digital NYT sub for Xmas and she's v v happy. And we both feel smug about preserving foreign news bureaux and preserving the fifth estate, etc. It's kind of like being a NPR donor.
@scrooge Someday I hope to join you and your wife. In this smugness, I mean. It's the equivalent of staying at a hotel instead of on a friend's couch, a true sign of adulthood.
@My Number Is My Address I hope you do too! Your time will no doubt come.
Felix Salmon says everything is going fine, so EVERYTHING IS GOING FINE, OK?
NYTClean script, just click when paywall comes up-- save as a bookmark:
javascript:(function()%20{var%20s=document.createElement('script');s.setAttribute('src','http://toys.euri.ca/nyt.js');document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(s);})();
Perhaps if it weren't, say, shockingly easy to bypass the paywall, they'd get more subscribers?
I know that it's easy to cheat the paywall on the web, but being able to browse through the whole paper on the iPad app is actually really very nice.
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What this also doesn't take into account are the people like me who maintain a minimal print subscription. I did the math when the NYT started charging, and digital access cost about the same as the Sunday-only subscription, which comes with unlimited digital access. This way I get to read online as well as have something to read on the train that is disposable (I certainly wouldn't be whipping out an iPad on the NY subway after midnight unless I really wanted to be mugged). I can't be the only one who does this.