New York Times Co. Reports Solid Digital Growth

The New York Times Company said on Wednesday that digital advertising revenue in the quarter rose 11 percent, to $49 million. The company also added 105,000 net digital-only subscriptions for its news product, helping to push digital subscription revenue to $86 million, a 46 percent increase compared with the same period a year ago. Over all, the company said, total revenue increased 6 percent in the quarter, to $386 million.

Including subscriptions for its crossword and cooking products, The Times now has nearly 2.5 million digital-only subscriptions.

The Times, however, has not been immune to the punishing, industrywide downturn in print. Print advertising revenue fell 20 percent in the quarter, fueling a 9 percent decrease in total advertising revenue.

“This was another strong quarter,” Mark Thompson, the chief executive of The Times, said during an earnings call, although he added that the market for print advertising remained “challenging.”

He also cited The Daily, The Times’s popular podcast, which he said had been downloaded more than 100 million times since February.

The sound, if not earth-shattering, financial results were announced as The Times fundamentally reshapes itself into a business no longer rooted in newsprint. In the last several months, it has eliminated its copy desk, offered buyouts to employees and reorganized the structure of its newsroom.

The $64 million in print advertising revenue represented just 17 percent of the company’s total revenue in the third quarter, Mr. Thompson said, and was $22 million less than revenue from digital subscriptions. He said The Times was on track to reach its goal of $800 million in annual digital revenue by 2020, and he reiterated that he did not think it was unreasonable to project that the company would one day have 10 million subscribers.

Operating profit for the quarter increased to $33 million, from $9 million in the same period last year. Adjusted operating profit rose to $57 million, from $39 million. (Adjusted operating costs in the quarter rose slightly, to $329 million from $324 million compared with the third quarter of 2016.)

Total subscription revenue increased 14 percent in the quarter, to $247 million, partly because of digital subscription growth. Other revenue, which include revenue associated with Wirecutter, a product-review and recommendation site that The Times bought last year, rose 18 percent.