The world’s biggest English-language paywalled news and magazine publishers now have more than 44.7 million digital subscribers between them, according to updated research from Press Gazette.
Our last ranking in December 2023 put that number on 39.5 million, meaning digital subscriber growth of 13% in just over a year (although some figures are outdated as not all publishers share them publicly, meaning growth may well be higher).
Press Gazette’s 100k Club ranks English-language publishers with at least 100,000 paying digital subscribers.
Fifty publishers in the UK, US, Canada and Australia appear on the list.
Substack’s paying subscribers have doubled in the past two years, leading it to overtake The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and Gannett to become the second-biggest publisher by digital subscriptions – albeit spread across multiple different publications on its platform.
Four million people are paying for content published on Substack, which takes a 10% cut, up from 2 million in February 2023.
The New York Times now has 10.8 million digital subscribers, cementing its place as a global leader in paid news (although a third of its subscriptions are for non-news products only).
Some of the new entrants in this list include Substack’s biggest title US-based “The Free Press” (150,000), the UK’s second-biggest regional news publisher Newsquest (113,000), and international B2B title The Business of Fashion (110,000).
The Washington Post (2.5 million) and Gannett (2 million) have kept their figures steady since the last ranking. Some of the biggest growth aside from Substack has come from the Financial Times (up 30% to 1.3 million), US local news publisher Lee Enterprises (up 27%), Bloomberg Media (up 25% despite a change in methodology) and US news and culture title The Atlantic (up 22%).
Other headlines from this new ranking including a drop in paid circulation of more than 100,000 at Bloomberg Media following a change in methodology at the US business news publisher.
Two platforms offering bundled news are present on the list: Cafeyn and Readly (having shared data with Press Gazette). Apple News+, which is likely to be the biggest paid subscription service providing access to multiple publishers, declined to share its subscriber total.
For the purposes of this ranking Press Gazette does not count “all you can read” subsriptions via aggregators such as Apple News+ in paid subscription totals for individual titles because revenue coming to publishers will be a small fraction of what they earn through direct subcriptions.
Digital news circulation figures provided by the Alliance for Audited Media in the US have been used in this ranking and can include a range of subscriber types such as e-editions, paywalled websites or paid apps. AAM magazine figures refer to digital replicas of the print product rather than website access.
Press Gazette has broken down figures by title where possible but has listed them by publisher where this is the only information available.
News publishers marked with an asterisk (*) denote figures that are more than a year old. This may be because some publishers, such as the Telegraph in the UK, that previously shared figures have changed their policy on doing so.
If we have missed your newsbrand/publisher off our list and you have 100,000 or more digital paying subscribers, please get in touch at charlotte.tobitt@pressgazette.co.uk and we will make additions where appropriate.
Biggest paywalled newsbrands in the world in 2025:
1. The New York Times Company: 10.8 million
The New York Times Company had 10.82 million digital-only subscribers in Q4 2024, up from 9.7 million a year earlier. Of these, half (5.44 million) pay for its subscription bundle or a combination of its products.
Almost a third of New York Times digital subscribers only pay for its non-core news products: The Athletic, Audio, Games, Wirecutter or Cooking (although some of these do include works of journalism).
Compared to Q3 2024, New York Times digital subscribers saw a net increase of 350,000 (up 3%) while year-on-year they were up by 1.11 million or 11%.
Average revenue per digital-only user is now at $9.65 after year-on-year growth of 4% – although ARPU for the single non-news products is much lower at $3.58. ARPU growth was attributed to subscribers moving from promotional to higher prices.
Including print, The New York Times Company has around 11.43 million total subscribers.
Source and date of figure: Quarterly/full-year earnings, 5 February 2025
2. Substack: 4 million
There are more than 4 million paid subscriptions to publications and podcasts on Substack, with politics as its largest category. Two are big enough to feature also individually on this ranking.
Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie said reaching this figure felt “something like a miracle”.
Substack started as a newsletter-focused platform but some creators now use it for its other tools such as ex-CNN anchor Jim Acosta starting his own video show this month.
The platform keeps a 10% cut of subscription revenue paid to its publications and creators.
See Press Gazette’s full list of the biggest-earning Substacks here.
Source and date of figure: Blog, 18 November 2024
3. The Wall Street Journal: 3.8 million
The Wall Street Journal had 3,787,000 digital-only subscriptions on average in the final three months of 2024, up 7% compared to the same quarter in 2023.
Digital subscriptions made up 90% of the brand’s total subscriptions which were at 4,225,000 – up 4%.
The subscriptions growth helped News Corp division Dow Jones grow revenues by $16m, or 3%, compared to Q4 2023.
Source and date of figure: News Corp quarterly earnings, 5 February 2025
4. The Washington Post: 2.5 million
The Washington Post does not publicly share its subscriber numbers but it has reportedly been at around 2.5 million for the past three years.
The Wall Street Journal has previously reported that the Post peaked at 3 million digital subscribers around the start of 2021, potentially with the “Trump bump” partly to thank, but this figure soon fell to somewhere over 2.5 million.
Then in October last year, just ahead of the latest US presidential election, around 250,000 subscribers were reported to have cancelled in protest at the last-minute decision made by Post owner Jeff Bezos not to endorse a candidate in its pages.
The Washington Post seemingly confirmed its approximate subscriber count by reporting in its own pages that the 250,000 cancellations amounted to 10% of its digital subscriber base.
The Post is currently battling to turn its finances around under chief executive William Lewis, who told staff last year that it lost $77m in 2023 amid a fall in subscriptions and a 50% drop in audience since 2020.
Source and date of figure: The Washington Post, October 2024
5. Gannett Media:Two million
Regional news publisher Gannett saw digital-only paid subscriptions in the US reach 1,953,000 as of 30 September 2024, growth of 3% compared to one year earlier.
When including UK subsidiary Newsquest (which is listed separately further down this ranking) Gannett had 2,056,000 paid digital subscriptions, growth of 4.7% in a year.
In total its digital-only subscription revenues were up 25% to $50.1m and digital-only average revenue per user was up 19.6% to $8.16.
Source and date of figure: Quarterly earnings, 31 October 2024
6. Cafeyn: Two million
Digital subscription service Cafeyn has 2 million users across its main markets: France, Netherlands, UK and Canada (meaning not all of them will be consuming in the English language).
Some of these users may be accessing the service through a deal with another company: for example, in the UK Cafeyn has a partnership with phone provider O2 which offers a six-month subscription as one potential perk.
In the UK, Cafeyn’s offering costs £7.99 per month and includes several national newspapers (The Guardian, The Independent, the Mirror, The i Paper, the Express) as well as hundreds of magazines like Hello!, Ok!, Four Four Two, Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Cycling Weekly, Radio Times, The Week and Stuff.
Source and dates of figure: Company spokesperson, 12 February 2025
7. Us Weekly: 1.6 million
Celebrity and entertainment magazine Us Weekly has a paid digital circulation of 1,633,573 according to the US Alliance of Audited Media. This excludes a further 51,968 digital readers coming mainly through Apple News+ but also bundle app Readly.
[Read more: Us Weekly editor on future of celebrity journalism: Kate Middleton speculation was ‘seminal moment’]
Source and date of figure: Alliance of Audited Media, 30 June 2024
8. Barron’s Group: 1.3 million
Barron’s Group, which includes financial newsbrands Barron’s, Market Watch, Financial News, Private Equity News, and Mansion Global, reached an average of 1,341,000 digital subscriptions in Q4 2024, up 21% year on year.
Some 92% of Barron’s Group subscriptions are digital-only: its total was 1,458,000.
Source and date of figure: News Corp quarterly earnings, 5 February 2025
9. Financial Times: 1.3 million
The Financial Times had 1,295,000 digital subscribers in 2023 according to its audited figures. Its 2024 numbers have not yet been published.
The FT says it has a global paying audience of 2.86 million people which includes the newspaper, its website, FT Live events and FT Specialist services.
In 2023 the FT made more than half a billion pounds in revenue for the first time in its history with growth in all its “major” revenue streams.
Source and date of figure: Company spokesperson, 7 February 2025
10. News Corp Australia: 1.1 million
Digital subscribers to News Corp Australia were 1,126,000 as of 31 December 2024, up 7% in a year.
For its news mastheads alone, including The Australian and The Daily Telegraph, digital subscribers were up 4% to 979,000.
Despite this digital growth, its circulation and subscription revenues were down 1% to $105m.
Source and date of figure: News Corp quarterly earnings, 5 February 2025
11. The Guardian: ‘Well over’ one million
The Guardian said in its strategic report for 2023/24 that it had “well over a million recurring digital supporters” and was at a “record high”. A spokesperson declined to share a more specific figure.
The newsbrand first hit the one-million mark in November 2021.
Supporters for The Guardian include those paying for its Digital Edition subscription (encompassing a digital version of the paper and full access to the main Guardian news app), its Feast recipes app, and those making donations not linked to a subscriber perk.
Guardian Media Group chair Charles Gurassa said in the strategic report: “In a difficult economic climate, we saw growth of our supporter base which increased digital reader revenues by 8% year on year.”
The Guardian launched Feast last year and the app saw more than 100,000 downloads in its first three months (although those people would not have necessarily gone on to pay for full access).
Source and date of figure: The Scott Trust accounts, 17 September 2024
12. Medium: One million
Medium crossed the one million paying members mark on 9 April 2024.
Medium members can read writers publishing on the platform without hitting a paywall, as well as read offline on the app and listen to audio narrations.
Chief executive Tony Stubblebine wrote that the milestone “seemed a little artificial” but that it nonetheless “feels good”.
Several months later he revealed that August 2024 was the “first profitable month in the history of the company” and that this was attributable to its paying members.
In addition, a year earlier a higher-priced membership ($15 per month instead of $5) was introduced with “the ability to pay more money to the authors you read” and this had 9,661 paying members as of August.
“There’s a side story about how good engineering has saved us money on our server bills,” Stubblebine wrote. “But mostly it was as simple as making something members wanted to subscribe to.”
Medium has been member-supported without advertising since 2017.
Source and date of figure: Blog, 9 April 2024
13. Weather Channel: One million*
In March 2023, the Weather Channel told Press Gazette it had more than one million subscribers but has not responded to requests for a more recent update.
The Weather Channel provides paying users with an ad-free tier and a premium tier featuring extra weather information and longer-range forecasts.
Source and date of figure: Company spokesperson, March 2023
14. The Economist: 783,420
The Economist Group reported 1.187 million total subscribers as of 30 September 2024, of which 66% were digital-only – putting them 783,420.
Some 89% of new subscribers in the six months to 30 September were digital-only, while the proportion of total subscribers that were digital-only grew from 61% in the previous period. Total subscriptions were up 3% year on year.
Economist Group chair Paul Deighton said the business is seeing “continuing success” with enterprise subscriptions allowing organisations to buy access for a large number of employees.
He added that it will “continue to focus on subscription growth and digital innovation” and cited the appointment in 2024 of Luke Bradley-Jones as president and managing director of The Economist, bringing subscriptions expertise from Disney+ and Sky.
Source and date of figure: Half-year results, 30 September 2024
15. Lee Enterprises: 771,000
US regional publisher Lee Enterprises has more than 771,000 digital subscribers across its titles, which operate in 26 states and 73 mid-sized communities. Its dailies include the St Louis Post-Dispatch and The Buffalo News.
Digital-only subscriptions saw growth of 7% in 2024 and a further increase in subscriber numbers and revenue remains “a top strategic priority for 2025”.
A financial report from September stated: Our strategy includes leveraging data and analytics to target our extensive addressable market of 26 million unique visitors, converting them into digital subscribers.
“With these efforts, we aim to achieve substantial growth in digital-only subscribers, targeting over 1.2 million by 2028.”
More than 53% of full-access (across print and digital) subscribers have activated their digital account.
Source and date of figure: Financial report, 29 September 2024
16. The Telegraph: 688,012*
The UK-based Telegraph had 688,012 digital subscriptions on average each week in the five weeks to 31 December 2023.
The newspaper also had 117,586 subscriptions while Telegraph Media Group’s other subscriptions (Telegraph Wine Cellar, Telegraph Puzzles and Chelsea Magazine Company) were on 230,112 giving a total of 1,035,710 and an overall average revenue per subscription of £145.91.
TMG previously published its subscription figures on a quarterly basis but the last time it did so was in January 2024 when it noted that “the numbers that reflect the success of our business model are our subscription numbers”.
Source and date of figure: Press release, 18 January 2024
17. Bloomberg Media: 625,000
Bloomberg Media announced it had reached 740,000 paid online subscribers in October 2024, representing growth of nearly 50% in a year. This was driven by more group and enterprise subscriptions.
But since then Bloomberg has revised down its online subscriber total to 625,000 by not counting the total number of seats (so potential users) in an enterprise subscription but instead only counting users who have claimed their free company-wide sub.
A spokesperson said: “In 2025, we’ve decided to recalibrate to focus only on the active/activated subscribers (rather than total seats) across media platforms. So our current total of subscribers is 625,000 – people engaging deeply with our news content; providing value to advertisers and the first party data that’s critical to our business. This number is up 11% YoY.”
This total is up from 500,000 in December 2023 when Press Gazette last compiled our 100k Club ranking.
This figure covers subscribers to Bloomberg.com, which launched a paywall in May 2018, and does not include subscriptions to data analytics and trading platform Bloomberg Terminals.
Source and date of figure: Company spokesperson, February 2025
18. The Times and Sunday Times: 616,000
The News Corp-owned Times, Sunday Times and Times Literary Supplement grew their digital subscribers by 7% to 616,000 as of 31 December 2024 – their largest quarterly net growth in two years.
The subscriptions growth helped News Corp’s news media division (which is separate from WSJ and Barron’s business Dow Jones) offset print sales declines and keep circulation revenues flat year on year in the last three months of 2024.
Source and date of figure: News Corp quarterly earnings, 5 February 2025
19. Nine Publishing: 500,000
Australia’s Nine Publishing has more than 500,000 subscribers, up 8% compared to the previous year.
The publisher said its newsbrands last year saw “strong growth in digital subscription revenue, with increases in subscriber volume and price at The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian Financial Review, more than offsetting the decline in print masthead sales… Subscription ARPU increased by around 3.5% across digital and bundle packages.”
The publishing company is expecting revenue and earnings to be down in 2025 following Meta ending payments to news companies in Australia, but said “digital subscriptions growth and a focus on a sustainable cost base is now expected to lay the foundations for increasing profitability for the mastheads on a longer term basis”.
Source and date of figure: Annual report, 28 August 2024
20. The Atlantic: 500,000
US current affairs magazine The Atlantic announced in April 2024 it had reached one million subscriptions, of which about half were print and digital and half were digital-only. The business has also become profitable.
The Atlantic launched its online paywall in September 2019. It soon saw growth in subscriptions of a double-digit percentage each year for four years. Around two-thirds of its revenue now comes from subscriptions.
The Alliance of Audited Media put The Atlantic on 467,045 print and 463,934 digital paid individual subscriptions in the first half of 2024. It also had 147,820 readers through Apple News.
Source and date of figure: Press Gazette, 2 May 2024 and Alliance of Audited Media, 30 June 2024
21. Which?: 472,000
UK consumer magazine brand Which? has 472,000 digital subscribers, down 5.6% compared to our last ranking in December 2023 when it was on approximately 500,000.
Subscriptions revenue makes up the main income stream for Which?.
A digital subscription provides full access to all product reviews, the Which? app, digital editions of the flagship magazine and the Which? Car Guide, and personalised buying advice.
Source and date of figure: Company spokesperson, 6 February 2025
22. The New Yorker: 468,125
The New Yorker, owned by Conde Nast, had 468,125 digital subscriptions to the magazine in the first half of 2024.
This excludes a further digital circulation of 80,389 through Apple News.
Source and date of figure: Alliance of Audited Media, 30 June 2024
23. Tribune Publishing: 436,000*
Tribune Publishing has not reported any financial or subscription figures since its acquisition by Alden Global Capital in 2021.
But the Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, Baltimore Sun and Orlando Sentinel publisher reported that it had 436,000 digital-only subscribers at the end of 2020.
Source and date for figure: Quarterly earnings, December 2020
24. Readly: 415,771
Swedish magazine and newspaper bundle reading app Readly has seen its subscriber count decrease in the past year.
The number of full-paying Readly subscribers at the end of September 2024 was 415,771 compared to 460,686 a year earlier – a drop of 9.7%.
Adjusted to account for the sale of French subscription provider Toutabo to Cafeyn, the dip was 3.8%. This decision was made due to a “sub-critical mass in France” and the business said it would enable “redirected marketing investments to Readly’s core markets”.
Despite this Readly said it had taken “significant steps towards robust profitability” and continued to make double-digit revenue growth when adjusted for VAT, currency fluctuations and divestments.
British publishers that are part of Readly’s offering include Reach, Metro, The Guardian, The Independent, Future, Conde Nast, Immediate Media and Bauer, Hearst.
Source and date of figure: Quarterly earnings, 18 October 2024
25. Hearst Newspapers: 370,000*
Press Gazette reported in our last ranking that US local news group Hearst Newspapers had around 370,000 digital-only subscribers to its US news division at the start of 2023. The company has not released new figures since.
In October Hearst appointed its first vice president of subscriptions responsible for “leveraging data and insights to help accelerate digital growth of the company’s consumer subscription business, inclusive of digital, print, membership and experiential opportunities, across a portfolio of more than 25 brands”.
Source and date of figure: Editor and Publisher, January 2023
26. Business Insider: 330,000
Axel Springer-owned Business Insider had 330,000 subscriptions in November 2023. A spokesperson declined to share a more recent figure.
However last year the site implemented a smart paywall which it said increased subscription conversions by 75% compared to its legacy paywall.
The number includes research and intelligence product Emarketer (formerly Insider Intelligence).
Source and date of figure: Company spokesperson, November 2023
27. National Geographic: 326,480
The US edition of National Geographic magazine had 326,480 individual digital subscriptions in the first half of 2024. This excludes a circulation of 142,753 through Apple News.
Source and date of figure: Alliance of Audited Media, 30 June 2024
28. McClatchy: 299,000*
US local news giant McClatchy, which owns the likes of the Sacramento Bee, Miami Herald and Kansas City Star, had 299,000 digital subscribers in 2020.
McClatchy merged with magazine giant a360, which owns titles like Us Weekly and Woman’s World, last year.
Source and date for figure: Company source, December 2020
29. Los Angeles Times: 275,000
The Los Angeles Times has about 275,000 direct digital subscribers, according to an interview with owner and executive chairman Dr Patrick Soon-Shiong in the title.
In total it was reported to have about 650,000 paying readers in total across print, digital and other third-party platforms (like Apple News+).
Dr Soon-Shiong suggested that a reasonable target would be to reach 1% of California’s 40 million residents, or 400,000 people, as direct digital subscribers.
Similar to The Washington Post, thousands of subscribers reportedly cancelled after Dr Soon-Shiong’s decision not to endorse a candidate in the presidential election in November.
Source and date of figure: Los Angeles Times, 15 December 2024
30. Boston Globe: 258,820
The Boston Globe had an average 257,211 paying digital non-replica (likely to refer to its paywalled website) subscribers in the six months to 30 September 2024, plus 1,609 paying subscribers to its digital newspaper edition according to the Alliance of Audited Media.
Chief commercial officer Kayvan Salmanpour told Press Gazette in October about the publication’s digital subscriptions journey including the decision not to lift its paywall for the Covid-19 pandemic (the Globe does also run a free website Boston.com).
He said this was when the Globe saw “real growth in subscriptions… in hindsight a lot of other media companies mentioned to us that they wished they had done the same.”
Source and date of figure: Alliance of Audited Media, 30 September 2024
31. Globe and Mail: 246,000*
A spokesperson for Canada’s largest national newspaper told Press Gazette in late 2023 that it had around 246,000 digital-only subscriptions, excluding Apple News+.
Source and date for figure: Company spokesperson, November 2023
32. Rolling Stone: 228,748
Penske-owned culture magazine Rolling Stone had 228,748 digital subscriptions in the first half of 2024. This excludes a further digital readership of 71,853 through multi-title platforms: primarily Apple News but also Readly.
Source and date of figure: Alliance of Audited Media, 30 June 2024
33. People: 225,653
US celebrity magazine People had 225,653 digital subscriptions in the first half of 2024. This excludes a further digital circulation of 384,051 through third-party platforms Apple News, Kindle Unlimited and Readly.
Source and date of figure: Alliance of Audited Media, 30 June 2024
34. New York Magazine: 220,506
The Vox Media-owned magazine had 220,506 subscriptions to its digital issue in the first half of 2024. This excludes a further digital readership of 72,239 through third-party platforms: primarily Apple News but also Readly.
Source and date of figure: Alliance of Audited Media, 30 June 2024
35. Mail: 220,000
The UK’s Daily Mail and Mail Online have 296,000 paying subscribers in total across two products, of which 220,000 are digital only.
Mail+, the partial paywall on Mail Online which launched in the UK in January 2024 and in Australia and New Zealand ten months later, has 130,000 paying subscribers.
Readers pay to receive extra content in many of the Mail’s core content areas including showbiz, royal, real life, health, personal finance advice and columnists, which are marked out by a Mail+ logo. Subscribers also see at least 80% less ads.
When Mail+ met the 100,000 milestone in November, editor-in-chief Ted Verity said: “The success of Mail+ is proof that readers are happy to pay for the kind of high-quality journalism the Mail has long been famous for.
“To hit 100,000 subscribers so quickly is a fantastic achievement and a huge testament to the brilliance of our journalists and the Mail+ team. But this is just the start – and we are hungry for much, much more.”
In addition there are 90,000 digital-only subscribers to Mail+ Editions, the app which gives phone or tablet access to the Mail newspapers and supplements as well as bonus content and puzzles.
Seven-day print subscribers also receive access to Mail+ Editions, meaning it has 166,000 subscribers in total.
Source and date of figure: Company spokesperson, 5 February 2025
36. Sports Illustrated: 200,032*
In the second half of 2023 US-based Sports Illustrated had digital subscriptions of 200,032, as well as 936,162 in print. It also had a digital readership of 44,612 through third-party platforms Apple News and Readly.
Sports Illustrated’s last AAM circulation report was in 2023 as publisher The Arena Group subsequently lost the licence and it looked like the title could close. However it was saved when licence-holder Authentic struck a ten-year deal with Minute Media and the magazine now continues to publish print magazines, is expanding video production, and launching podcasts, events and stadium sponsorships this year. New circulation data is expected to be released soon.
Source and date of figure: Alliance of Audited Media, 31 December 2023
37. Wired: 189,584
The US edition of Conde Nast-owned tech magazine Wired had a digital circulation of 189,584 from January to June 2024 according to its Alliance for Audited Media certificate. This compares to a print subscriber base of 285,425. Wired had an additional digital readership of 117,539 through Apple News+.
Source and date of figure: Alliance of Audited Media, 30 June 2024
38. Vanity Fair: 179,204
The US editio of Conde Nast culture and fashion magazine Vanity Fair had 179,204 digital subscriptions in the first half of 2024, excluding a further digital readership of 98,808 through Apple News+.
Source and date of figure: Alliance of Audited Media, 30 June 2024
39. Time: 171,551
US weekly title Time magazine had 171,551 digital subscriptions in the first half of 2024 with a further digital readership of 74,808 through Apple News.
Time dropped its online paywall in June 2023 as individual consumers paying for its website “wasn’t a big enough business”, chief executive Jessica Sibley later told Press Gazette. She said the shift to B2B revenue has proved a success.
Source and date of figure: Alliance of Audited Media, 30 June 2024
40. Vogue: 153,075
The US edition of Conde Nast flagship fashion magazine Vogue had 153,075 digital subscriptions in the first half of 2024. This excludes 121,669 digital readers through Apple News+.
In the past year the Vogue website has introduced a paywall for the first time, with the first year of unlimited access costing £12 before it increases to £24.99. A subscription to the magazine, costing £24 before rising to £39.99 per year, includes website access.
Source and date of figure: Alliance of Audited Media, 30 June 2024
41. San Francisco Chronicle: 152,788
The Hearst Newspapers-owned San Francisco Chronicle had a paid subscribers to its digital replica edition of 134,297 in the six months to 30 September according to the Alliance of Audited Media, plus a further 18,491 paying “non-replica” digital subscribers (which can include a range of online products including website access).
Source and date of figure: Alliance of Audited Media, 30 September 2024
42. The Free Press: 150,000
The Free Press, which was founded by former New York Times opinion writer Bari Weiss on Substack in 2021, has around 150,000 paying subscribers according to Semafor with 1.1 million signed-up readers in total.
The publication’s goal for the year is reportedly to reach 250,000 paying subscribers. The paid offering did not initially include extras but now encompasses subscriber-only content, events and podcasts.
In December, when The Free Press surpassed one million subscribers, Weiss claimed that part of the reason for the growth was the collapse of trust in the legacy media in the US “with curious and independent-minded readers unsubscribing from The New York Times, pausing their donations to NPR, and searching for trustworthy alternatives”.
She added: “But we quickly discovered that you can’t build something new—or certainly not something lasting—based only on rejecting the old. You have to build something people value. Something people need… From day one, we’ve been reporting stories the legacy media was scared to touch or had overlooked as a result of its incuriousness, politesse, or entrenched interests. We’ve aimed to pair the political freedom of the new world with the professed standards of the old.
“And because we’ve been a subscription business from the start, we’ve been liberated from the need to please advertisers or get clicks. That’s allowed us to do ambitious journalism, driven by a desire to bring our readers great work that informs them about the world as it is.”
Source and date of figure: Semafor, 9 February 2025
43. New Zealand Herald: 137,000
New Zealand’s newspaper of record, owned by NZME, had 137,000 digital subscribers and 89,000 in print as of June 2024.
Digital subscription volumes were up 11% compared to the first half of 2023 and digital subscriptions revenues were up 13% to $11.1m.
In the first half of 2024, the title introduced an “enhanced subscription platform to enable a dynamic experience and offers to maximise subscriber lifetime value and open up new segments e.g. international”.
The New Zealand Herald is targeting 190,000 digital subscribers in 2026 and to still have more than 65,000 print subscribers.
Source and date of figure: Half-year results, 26 August 2024
44. Fortune: 133,923
US-based business title Fortune had 133,923 paid subscriptions to its digital magazine in the US in the first half of 2024.
This excludes a further digital circulation of 47,474 through Apple News+.
Source and date of figure: Alliance of Audited Media, 30 June 2024
45. Australian Community Media: 120,000*
Australia’s largest publisher of regional news surpassed 100,000 digital subscribers in 2021. The following year the company’s executive editor James Joyce noted that it had 120,000 subscribers.
This month Australian Community Media managing director Tony Kendall said the publisher plans to move all of its newspapers to one print edition per week within seven years as it focuses instead on its digital subscription products.
“We think the long-term future of publishing is for a really strong digital subscription product during the week and a really strong Saturday publication,” he said.
Source and date for figure: Australian Digital News Report, June 2022
46. Harvard Business Review: 116,320
Harvard Business Review had 116,320 individual paid digital subscriptions to its magazine in the first half of 2024. This compares to a print subscriptions figure of 211,824.
Source and date of figure: Alliance of Audited Media, 30 June 2024
47. Newsquest: 113,000
The UK’s second-largest regional publisher Newsquest announced in September it had hit 100,000 digital subscribers paying for full website access to its daily newspaper brands including The Northern Echo, Brighton Argus and The Herald in Scotland.
An earnings report for Newsquest’s US parent company Gannett put the figure at 103,000 as of 30 September 2024 and by 10 February 2025 it was up to 113,000.
Newsquest chief executive Henry Faure Walker told Press Gazette previously that subscriptions now bring in more than £500,000 per month.
He added: “I don’t think it’s going to be the main revenue stream for us… but it’s an important part of the mix.”
Soft metered paywalls were rolled out on most of Newsquest’s larger newspaper websites in 2020 after an initial trial on its biggest brands.
Online visitors to Newsquest websites can typically read up to 30 articles a month before paying £4.99, although some articles are subscriber-only. Subscribers also get an “ad-light environment” and access to the e-paper.
Faure Walker said in February: “The demand for our journalism continues to grow with the 53 million visitors to the Newsquest sites in January reading a record number of articles.
“The results from digital subs continue to exceed our expectations and reinforce our view that soft pay walls are a fundamental part of our local news business model, alongside our successful advertising business.”
Source and date of figure: Press release, 10 February 2025
48. The Business of Fashion: 110,000
International fashion industry B2B title The Business of Fashion says it has reached 110,000 paying subscribers.
Its paid offerings include access to all of its journalism including via its app, email briefings, digital events, masterclasses, business case studies and insights reports from a team of more than 100 people in London, New York, Paris and Milan.
Subscribers are the brand’s main source of financial support; its last funding round was in 2019.
Source and date of figure: Company spokesperson, January 2025
49. The Minnesota Star Tribune: 109,791
Independent newspaper the Minnesota Star Tribune reported an average paid digital replica circulation of 15,000 in the six months to 30 September 2024 plus 94,791 to its non-replica digital products (likely including its website subscription).
Source and date of figure: Alliance of Audited Media, 30 September 2024
50. Letters From An American: 100,000+
Historian Heather Cox Richardson’s Substack publication Letters from an American has “hundreds of thousands” of paying subscribers, meaning a minimum of 100,000 but likely more.
Press Gazette calculated that combined with its £40 ($50) annual subscription cost, that suggests yearly revenue of at least £4m ($5m).
Source and date of figure: Press Gazette, 23 January 2025
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