The (Not Failing) New York Times — Mine Safety Disclosures

In 2020 so far (Q1 and Q2), NYT has spent $113.4 million on marketing and has acquired 1.2 million new subscribers. This implies a customer acquisition cost (CAC) of $94.51*. If the introductory offer is $4 per month for a year and the full price of $17 after that, their payback period is ~15 months.

Newspaper revenue really started to collapse well over a decade ago, and we've been discussing what to do about it for almost as long.

This chart also gets to the heart of the challenges of being a content publisher: publishing content is expensive, requiring a significant investment in people (journalists, videographers, artists, etc.) or a significant payout to content creators. This leads to lower margins for content publishers relative to content platforms. The New York Times ... See more

Having recently passed 10m subs, NYT is shooting for 15m by 2027. If the bundling play works, news might become just a small part of the company’s business.