The New York Times is hoping to replicate the feeling of sharing sections of a print newspaper around the breakfast table for the digital age as it launches family subscriptions for the first time.
New York Times head of subscriptions growth Ben Cotton said customising each element of the bundle was a “compelling” reason why people would want to pay more, even if they currently share their login unofficially with friends or family.
Cotton told Press Gazette: “I do think that over the last several years we have built out features in each of our products that make it more compelling to be able to customise each product on your own and make it your own, whether that is your own stats and streaks on Wordle and Connections and other things that feed into a shared leaderboard, or having your own recipe saved in your recipe box, or following your own favourite teams on The Athletic that are not anybody else’s favourite teams. We think that’s going to feel valuable to people now and will feel increasingly valuable in the future.”
For news, people can select topics of interest, see their reading history and save articles in the You tab of the app. Cotton said: “Those are things that we think are more compelling if they reflect only your behaviour, and it does help us make better recommendations for you in our product and in what we’re sending you on email or push alerts too.”
There are two types of family subscription: all-access, which costs $30 a month for up to four people compared to $20 per month for an individual subscription. All-access includes news, sport (The Athletic), games, cooking and Wirecutter reviews products.
The New York Times is also offering a Games family subscription, costing $10 a month compared to $6 for an individual. All of these prices are subject to promotions and experimentation.
Cotton said: “It’s actually something we’ve talked about in the context of the print newspaper, and how the print newspaper was sort of the original family subscription. You hear so many stories about families who sit around the breakfast table and pass around the different sections of the print newspaper based on which member of the family likes which section. And so we think that kind of communal experience is what we’re going for digitally.”
He added: “Part of what we’re excited about here, from a business standpoint, is that we think this will be a compelling reason for subscribers to pay us a little bit more. We think it’s a really good deal to be able to give access to four people for just a little bit more than it would cost you to buy an individual subscription for yourself.”
The new offering comes after “significant investments” in the New York Times subscription platforms and technical capabilities in recent years that “make it much easier for us to manage a wider set of subscription offerings and tiers”, Cotton explained.
New York Times targets 15 million subscribers by end of 2027
The New York Times has set a target of reaching 15 million subscribers by the end of 2027. It reported at the start of August that it had 11.88 million subscribers, of which 11.3 million were digital only (with 6.02 million of those subscribing to a bundle or multi-product deal) – making it the leading English-language newsbrand in the world in terms of paying online readers.
The new family subscription will be counted as two subscribers for these datapoints to reflect the fact that it costs more and houses multiple people, whether that’s two, three or four. Some family subscriptions were included in the Q2 data for the first time as the feature was trialled with certain users.
The publisher is expecting to see a subscriptions revenue boost as subscribers choose to pay more to upgrade to a family plan, Cotton said.
He also said it should help the total subscriber numbers by improving retention “because if you’re cancelling that subscription, you’re not cancelling it just for yourself, you’re cancelling it for as many as four people, and we think that’s going to be a powerful motivation for subscribers to stay with us, which really helps us grow our subscriber base over time”.
He added: “Also, we think there are a lot of people who have some relationship with the Times right now and might use our products in a lighter way, but haven’t been ready to subscribe yet on their own, but if a friend or family member is inviting them to join in on a family subscription, we think that might be something that will motivate them to want to subscribe to the Times, and that will help us grow our subscriber count in terms of bringing in more new subscribers.”
Cotton said: “I think we have a lot of growth ahead of us. We remain very focused on our 15 million subscriber target by 2027 and I would view this as a part of that strategy. We are always looking for creative, new ways to reach more subscribers, and we think that offering family subscriptions that really lean into the ability of subscribers to share the Times with others is a powerful way to bring more readers or listeners or games players or home cooks into a relationship with the Times.”
He added: “We think it’s a very exciting moment for our subscription business overall. This is the biggest change to our overall subscription structure in a number of years, and we think that it’ll be exciting for our business, but also for our users and our subscribers.”
The Times (of London) launched a bonus accounts feature in May, whereby it allows subscribers to share access with family members at no additional cost.
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