The New Statesman has revealed digital subscriptions growth of 75% over the past year and rising paid-for print circulation amid “significant investment” in the brand.
The title also announced today that registered users of the site are up 83% over the past year to more than 200,000 and subscription revenue is up 77% over the last three years. Overall traffic to the New Statesman website (paywalled since March 2018) currently stands at around 2m per month and the title’s paid-circulation (print and digital) stood at 34,451 as of January 2021 – the highest level it has reached in 40 years.
Group chief product officer Martin Ashplant said: “With the launch of the New Statesman’s new website now imminent and following a period of significant digital expansion, our focus is firmly on engagement and communities. This rapid growth in digital readership and paid-for subscriptions shows that the strategy is working and it enabled us to remove network advertising from the website last year.”
The New Statesman is the latest in a number of news media titles to report significant growth in online subscribers during the coronavirus pandemic, at a time when advertising and events revenues have been under pressure for publishers.
[Read more: The 100k Club: Most popular subscription news websites in the world revealed]New Statesman editor-in-chief Jason Cowley said: “At this time of multifaceted crisis, our response has been to accelerate investment and invest in journalism. In recent months, Philip Collins, John Gray, Chris Deerin, Rachel Cunliffe and Louise Perry have joined the team and we are planning to hire even more outstanding writers.
“The New Statesman has successfully rebuilt from a low base over recent years and we are now in a position to accelerate our expansion – which includes international expansion under the leadership of Jeremy Cliffe and the launch of a new website.”
The digital growth for New Statesman Media Group’s flagship brand comes as the privately owned company has, in recent months, launched a network of digital titles with a remit to “analyse and explain the defining political, economic, cultural, technological and social issues of our time”.
The new sites and their editors (all leading journalists in their fields) are:
- Investment Monitor – Courtney Fingar
- City Monitor – Sommer Mathis
- Tech Monitor – Pete Swabey
- And Energy Monitor – Philippa Nuttall Jones.
Press Gazette, which is part of the New Statesman Group, has also expanded over the past year with the recruitment of a US editor and data journalist and the launch of a new weekly Media Monitor newsletter providing strategic insight for news and media industry leaders globally (subscribe here).
The other brands in the New Statesman group are Spear’s, Elite Traveller and World of Fine Wine.
New Statesman Media Group is also set to launch LeadMonitor.ai, which is described as “a unique marketing solution which offers through-the-funnel content marketing and lead generation via its range of premium B2B and B2C brands, through first-party insights to an audience of over 89m users”.
Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog
