NYTimes Subs Hit New High, Profit Dips

As digital revenue becomes more central to the newspaper business, The New York Times Company on Wednesday reported second-quarter revenue growth of 5.2 percent compared with the same quarter last year.

Operating profit declined by the same proportion, to $37.9 million from $40 million a year earlier. In a statement, Mark Thompson, the company’s chief executive, said the dip in profit was “in large part a result of continued investment into growing our subscription business.”

The number of paid subscriptions, digital and print, reached 4.7 million, a high. Nearly 3.8 million people pay for the publisher’s online products, with the company adding a net total of 197,000 customers for its news, crossword and cooking apps during the quarter, a sharp increase from the 109,000 subscriptions added in the same period in 2018. Of those subscribers, 131,000 came for the digital news product.

Since introducing its web paywall eight years ago, The New York Times has sought to guard against industry declines in print advertising revenue by making most of its money from subscriptions, breaking from the traditional newspaper business model.

“We’re making steady progress toward our goal of reaching 10 million total subscriptions by 2025,” Mr. Thompson said.

Subscription revenue rose 3.8 percent from a year earlier, to $270.5 million. Digital-only subscription revenue makes up less than half that, $112.6 million, but grew more than 14 percent from last year’s second quarter.

In advertising, past trends held. Digital advertising revenue rose 13.7 percent year over year, while print advertising dropped 8 percent. Even so, in absolute terms, print ads brought in slightly more money than digital ads during the second quarter, $62.7 million versus $58 million — a sign that ads on paper remain lucrative.

In its report on Wednesday, the company said it expected digital subscription revenue to continue to rise steadily in the third quarter. At the same time, it warned that the outlook for ad revenue was not so promising for the second half of 2019, with expected drops in total ad revenue and digital ad revenue from strong third and fourth quarters last year.