64th World Newspaper Congress and 19th World Editors Forum

1. Winners shaping the future
– How some newspaper
companies are succeeding
and leading the way
Michael Golden
Vice Chairman
The New York Times Company and
Publisher of the IHT
USA

2. DIGITAL
SUBSCRIPTIONS
WAN-IFRA KIEV
SEPTEMBER 2012

3. BEFORE LAUNCH
Here’s what our critics were saying:
• “New York Times Paywall: Wishful Thinking or Just Crazy?”
• “5 Reasons Why The New York Times Paywall Will Fail (And Why
It’s Really Dumb)”
• “The New York Times Paywall Business Model Is Doomed”

4. AFTER LAUNCH
Here’s what they’re saying now:
“In my wildest dreams when they rolled this out a year ago, I didn’t think they’d
be at over 450,000 subscribers a year later. The execution, the threading the
needle between free and restricted access and harvesting of its huge unique
visitor number has been pretty flawless.”
Douglas Arthur, Evercore Partners
On the one-year anniversary of the NYT digital subscription business

5. WHERE WE ARE TODAY
• More than 500,000 digital-only paid subscribers.
• Retention rates for print subscribers have improved.
• The New York Times Media Group has had revenue growth for five
quarters since starting the digital subscription plan.
• It’s been a huge, emotional lift for employees.
• Only modest reductions in unique visitors and pageviews on NYTimes.com.

6. #1
BE CLEAR ON YOUR GOALS.
What are you trying to accomplish?
Expanded subscriptions?
Protecting print subscriptions and economics?
Giving consumers access on multiple devices?
Increasing revenue?
Our goal:
To develop a significant paid-digital subscription plan
because our content warrants it and the business needs it.

7. #2
ALIGN THE WHOLE ORGANIZATION
BEHIND THE EFFORT.
Touches every aspect of the business: Technology, marketing,
analytics, finance, editorial, advertising, design, etc.
Your customers expect a wonderful experience
and you have to unite to deliver it.
We put almost everything else on hold for 18 months
to make sure we got it right.

8. #3
YOUR READERS KNOW BEST.
Customers tell you what they want. Are you listening?
The Times did extensive research on reader needs,
usability testing on the product, price and offer testing and
made A/B testing a core competency.

9. #4
THINK (AND ACT) LIKE A
DIGITAL RETAILER.
Groupon
Deals
Flipboard
collaboration
Apple
Newsstand Gateway to 10
release
iTunes MEU conversions
integration
Cyber Monday
promotion
Web access for
Kindle users
Constantly innovate in product
enhancements and marketing initiatives
Global pay
model launch
Q2 2011 Q3 2011 Q4 2011 Q1 2012 Q2 2012

10. #5
ADVERTISING STILL WORKS.

11. OUR GOAL NOW
Optimize for earnings, not singularly
focused on subscription volume:
•Digital subscription revenue
•Print subscription revenue
•Digital advertising revenue

12. WHAT’S NEXT?
Continue driving rapid growth
of the digital subscription business
Introduce next generation paid products
Develop an even deeper understanding
of our consumers and prospects
Improve user experience to better serve
existing subscribers