New York Times Aims to Double Digital Revenues with Mobile Focus

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The New York Times is planning to double its digital revenues over the course of the next four years by focusing on increasing the number of online subscribers viewing its publications on their smartphones.

The company generated $400m (£260m) in revenue through both online advertising and subscriptions last year, and is aiming to bring in $800m annually by 2020, according to a memo sent to staff by CEO Mark Thompson and executive editor Dean Baquet.

The memo, titled Our Path Forward, laid out a plan for attracting more young and international readers by focusing on consumers who were accessing news via their smartphones and tablets. The New York Times reached a milestone earlier this year by passing 1m paid digital subscribers, but also saw print ad revenues drop by 13 per cent in the second quarter.

“The next million must be fought for and won over with The Times on their phones,” said Thompson and Baquet in the memo. “We must continue to guide readers with our editorial judgement, while also becoming better at using technology to anticipate and serve their personal needs and curiousity.”

The memo detailed plans to reimagine how the New York Times delivers digital news, with a focus on graphics, video and design, as well as social media-friendly approaches like liveblogging. The publisher will also shift from a broadcast model to developing “one-to-one relationships with readers that tailor the way they experience our content”, with innovations like mobile alerts based on reader interests and articles that use contextual data based on reader location.

“Mobile is not simply another distribution method; it is transforming the way people consume news and information,” said the memo. “We have been improving our two main entry points on mobile – our home page and our article page – making these experiences more visual and helpful, with features like bigger photos and bullet point to distill breaking news.”

The memo seems to reaffirm the New York Times focus on the subscription model as a way of earning digital revenues – it notes that 12 per cent of digital readers deliver 90 per cent of the total digital revenue thanks to subscriptions, and that thanks to its website and apps, the paper now has 64 per cent more subscribers than it did at the peak of print.