New York Times Pulls in Roughly 200,000 New Digital Subscriptions During 4th Quarter
One of President-elect Donald Trump’s favorite whipping boys, especially when it comes to the media, is the New York Times. During the campaign, and since surprisingly winning the election, Trump has devoted dozens of tweets railing against the Gray Lady.
Shortly after Election Day, Trump made the claim that the NYT was losing thousands of subscribers due to their coverage of him. However, it appears the opposite is true.
Wow, the @nytimes is losing thousands of subscribers because of their very poor and highly inaccurate coverage of the "Trump phenomena"
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 13, 2016
According to The Hollywood Reporter, New York Times CEO Mark Thompson revealed that so far in the fourth quarter, the paper has seen a huge surge in subscription growth.
“We’ve seen really remarkable growth,” reaching to nearly 200,000 new digital-only subscriptions during the fourth quarter, New York Times CEO Mark Thompson on Monday said of new paid subscriptions since the election during a presentation to the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference that was webcast.
“We’ve seen weeks of ten times the subscription growth we saw last year,” Thompson said, adding no traditional lull in the news cycle following a U.S. president election has occurred as Trump and his presidential transition team continue to attract the attention of media consumers.
Overall, it appears the Times has pulled in 400,000 new subscriptions this quarter.
NYT signed up 400k subscribers in the quarter. CEO says paper could reach 10 million digital subscribers. NYT shares up highest since Feb.
— Gerry Smith (@gerryfsmith) December 5, 2016
This actually isn’t a total shock for the publication. Roughly a week after Election Day, the NYT pointed out that it had experienced its biggest one-week subscription increase in five years, seeing a net rise of 41,000 subscriptions.
Recently, Trump met with the Times to speak with editors, reporters and columnists. While he did criticize their coverage early on in the interview, he eventually lauded the paper and said he wants to have a good relationship with them.
[image via New York Times]
–