|
The New York Times Company (NYT): Business Model Canvas [Dec-2025 Updated] |
Fully Editable: Tailor To Your Needs In Excel Or Sheets
Professional Design: Trusted, Industry-Standard Templates
Investor-Approved Valuation Models
MAC/PC Compatible, Fully Unlocked
No Expertise Is Needed; Easy To Follow
The New York Times Company (NYT) Bundle
Honestly, looking at The New York Times Company's current setup feels like reviewing a textbook case on successful digital transformation. After two decades analyzing market shifts, I can tell you this isn't just about selling papers anymore; it's a sophisticated bundle play where their 12.33 million digital-only subscribers-driving $367.4 million in Q3 2025 subscription revenue alone-are the engine. You're about to see exactly how they manage that massive global newsroom talent against rising tech costs and litigation, all while keeping their value proposition as the gold standard for trusted news. Dive in below to see the full nine blocks of this model.
The New York Times Company (NYT) - Canvas Business Model: Key Partnerships
You're looking at the critical alliances that help The New York Times Company distribute its journalism and monetize its content outside of its direct subscriber base. These partnerships are essential for scale and for navigating the new digital landscape, especially with AI emerging as a major force.
Amazon: AI Content Licensing
The multi-year agreement with Amazon is a prime example of The New York Times Company securing value for its intellectual property in the age of generative AI. This deal gives Amazon access to a wide array of content, including news, NYT Cooking recipes, and The Athletic sports coverage, for training its proprietary models and potentially for use in Alexa responses. Honestly, this is a big step, moving from litigation concerns to direct compensation.
Here's the quick math on that deal, which was first reported in July 2025:
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Annual Licensing Fee Range | $20 million to $25 million |
| Approximate % of 2024 Total Revenue | Nearly 1% |
| Content Included | News, NYT Cooking, The Athletic |
What this estimate hides is the long-term strategic value of setting a precedent for AI licensing. Finance: draft 13-week cash view by Friday.
PressReader: Global Distribution Reach
The partnership with PressReader locks in exclusive global distribution for The New York Times Company's digital news products and digital replica editions across specific non-consumer channels. This helps ensure your journalism reaches travelers and institutions in remote areas where direct digital access might be less common. It's about maximizing reach where you might not otherwise have a direct sales channel.
This distribution network is quite extensive:
- Exclusive distributor for hotels and airlines.
- Covers non-U.S. public libraries.
- Spans partners in over 150 countries.
- Includes cruise lines, ferry services, and patient-care facilities.
The New York Times Company continues its collaboration with PressReader Group's white-label tech platform, Branded Editions, which offers features like auto-translate.
Major Advertisers: Proprietary Ad-Tech
To combat the zero-click phenomenon, The New York Times Company is doubling down on its own technology, specifically BrandMatch, its generative AI targeting tool launched in beta in September 2024. This proprietary ad-tech is key for securing Private Marketplace (PMP) deals, allowing for programmatic buying with custom, context-aware targeting based on reader emotion and motivation. It's defintely a way to prove direct value to advertisers.
Advertising performance metrics from Q3 2025 show this strategy is gaining traction:
| Advertising Metric (Q3 2025, ending Sept 30) | Amount/Rate |
|---|---|
| Total Advertising Revenue | $132.3 million (up 11.8% YoY) |
| Digital Advertising Revenue | $98.1 million (up 20.3% YoY) |
| BrandMatch Client Campaigns Supported (to date) | 150 |
| Example Campaign CTR (Book Promotion) | More than 1% |
| Example Campaign CTR (Ferragamo) | 0.81% |
Technology Platforms: Aggregator Distribution
Distribution agreements with technology platforms like Apple News remain a necessary, albeit sometimes complex, part of the digital strategy. While The New York Times Company has expressed historical wariness about habituating users to find content outside its own app, these channels still provide significant reach. For context, publishers in Apple's News Partner Program can qualify for a 15% commission rate on qualifying in-app purchase subscriptions from day one.
Institutional Investors: Capital Stability
Key institutional shareholders provide a bedrock of capital stability and confidence in the long-term strategy. Marshall Wace LLP, for instance, significantly increased its position in the second quarter of 2025. Understanding who holds the stock helps you gauge market sentiment from sophisticated players.
Here's the breakdown on Marshall Wace LLP's Q2 2025 holding:
- Shares Held (End of Q2 2025)
- 1,858,061 shares
- Approximate Value (End of Q2 2025)
- Roughly $104.0 million
- Ownership Stake
- About 1.14% of the company
Overall institutional ownership stood at 96.38% as of the latest filings, showing strong backing from funds and institutions.
The New York Times Company (NYT) - Canvas Business Model: Key Activities
You're focused on how The New York Times Company converts its core product-journalism-into sustainable revenue streams through digital execution. Here's a look at the key activities driving the business as of late 2025, grounded in the Q3 2025 financial results.
Producing high-quality, original, and investigative journalism.
This remains the foundational activity, directly supporting the subscription value proposition. The company continues to invest heavily here, evidenced by the strong digital revenue growth despite print subscription declines. The core news product is the anchor for the entire bundle strategy.
Developing and enhancing digital products (Games, Cooking, The Athletic).
Expanding beyond news is a critical activity to drive engagement and bundle adoption. The Games division, for instance, shows massive engagement: in 2024, NYT Games puzzles were played a staggering 11.1 billion times across all products. Specific product play counts from 2024 include Wordle at 5.3 billion plays, Connections at 3.3 billion plays, and the newer Strands at 1.3 billion plays. The Athletic is integrated into the bundle, contributing to overall subscriber metrics.
Managing and optimizing the digital subscription paywall and bundle strategy.
This activity centers on converting readers to paying customers and maximizing the value of each relationship. The bundle strategy is clearly succeeding, as bundle and multiproduct subscribers now represent 51% of the total digital-only base, totaling approximately 6.27 million customers as of September 30, 2025. The overall digital-only subscriber base reached 12.33 million at the end of Q3 2025, adding approximately 460,000 net new subscribers that quarter alone. Digital-only subscription revenues hit $367 million in Q3 2025, marking a 14.0% year-over-year increase. Digital-only Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) was $9.79 in Q3 2025.
Here's the quick math on the subscription revenue shift:
| Metric | Q3 2025 Amount/Rate |
| Total Subscription Revenues | $495 million |
| Digital-Only Subscription Revenues | $367 million |
| Digital-Only Subscription Revenue Growth (YoY) | +14.0% |
| Print Subscription Revenue Change (YoY) | -3.0% |
What this estimate hides is the ongoing pressure on print, which the digital growth must continually outpace.
Protecting intellectual property through litigation and licensing (e.g., AI lawsuits).
The New York Times Company is actively defending its content against generative AI models. The company acknowledged a $2.4 million pre-tax cost in Q3 2025 related to its ongoing copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft. This litigation is a direct activity to secure future licensing revenue streams and protect against unauthorized use of its archive.
Scaling video and audio content production for digital engagement.
To keep the bundle compelling, The New York Times Company is actively scaling multimedia formats. In Q3 2025, management highlighted specific advances, including expanded video journalism, converting award-winning podcasts into video shows, and introducing a new Watch tab within the flagship app. This content scaling supports the digital advertising growth, which saw digital advertising revenues reach $98 million in Q3 2025, a 20.3% surge year-over-year.
Key operational metrics supporting these activities include:
- Net digital-only subscriber additions in Q3 2025: 460,000.
- Total digital-only subscribers as of September 30, 2025: 12.33 million.
- Digital advertising revenue growth in Q3 2025: 20.3%.
- Reported pre-tax cost for AI litigation in Q3 2025: $2.4 million.
Finance: review the Q4 2025 capital expenditure plan for content production by next Tuesday.
The New York Times Company (NYT) - Canvas Business Model: Key Resources
You're looking at the core assets that power The New York Times Company's entire operation as of late 2025. These aren't just line items; they are the engine for the subscription and advertising growth we've been tracking.
Global Newsroom Talent remains the foundational resource. The commitment to quality journalism is backed by a substantial human capital investment. As of the last reported figure, the newsroom included over 1,700 journalists and editors, a number established in 2023 that underpins the entire value proposition. This talent base is what drives engagement across all products.
The Intellectual Property is immense, anchored by a content archive that stretches back to the first edition in 1851. This historical depth provides a unique, irreplaceable asset for training AI models and offering context that newer outlets simply cannot match. Furthermore, the company's portfolio includes significant acquired assets like The Athletic and Wirecutter, diversifying the content offering beyond core news.
The Digital Subscriber Base is the primary financial anchor. As of the third quarter of 2025, the company reported approximately 12.33 million digital-only subscribers, a figure that shows the success of the multi-product bundling strategy. This base generated significant revenue in the quarter.
Here's a quick look at the Q3 2025 performance metrics tied to these resources:
| Resource Metric | Value | Context/Date |
|---|---|---|
| Digital-Only Subscribers | 12.33 million | As of Q3 2025 |
| Net Digital-Only Adds (Q3 2025) | 460,000 | Q3 2025 Net Adds |
| Bundle/Multiproduct Subscribers | 6.27 million | 51% of Digital-Only Base (Q3 2025) |
| Digital Subscription Revenue (Q3 2025) | $367 million | Up 14.0% Year-over-Year |
| Total Revenue (Q3 2025) | $700.8 million | Q3 2025 Reported |
| Digital Advertising Revenue (Q3 2025) | $98.1 million | Up 20.3% Year-over-Year |
| Newsroom Staff (Journalists/Editors) | 1,700 | Figure from 2023 |
The Proprietary Technology stack is critical for monetization and efficiency. BrandMatch, the generative artificial intelligence targeting technology launched in 2024, is now a proven asset. By late 2025, this platform had supported 150 client campaigns, demonstrating its ability to drive higher advertising performance by matching brand messages to reader context.
The investment in technology is also visible in legal matters; the company acknowledged a pre-tax cost of $2.4 million related to its copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft in Q3 2025, which is a direct defense of its core IP asset.
You can see the direct financial impact of these resources in the revenue breakdown for the third quarter of 2025:
- Total Subscription Revenues: $495 million, an increase of 9.1% year-over-year.
- Adjusted Operating Profit: $131 million, reflecting a 26.1% growth.
- Free Cash Flow: Approximately $393 million generated for the first nine months of 2025.
The company continues to reinvest these returns into its core assets.
The New York Times Company (NYT) - Canvas Business Model: Value Propositions
The core value proposition for The New York Times Company centers on delivering trusted, authoritative, and non-partisan news and analysis, a value proposition clearly supported by its paying audience base as of late 2025.
The commitment to quality journalism underpins the entire subscription strategy. You see this commitment reflected in the total subscriber count, which reached 12.33 million across print and digital products by the third quarter of 2025. This base is heavily weighted toward digital, with 11.76 million digital-only subscribers at that time. The willingness of the audience to pay for this content is evident in the digital-only Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) hitting $9.79 in Q3 2025, marking a 3.6% year-over-year increase.
The value proposition has broadened significantly into Diverse Utility through engaging lifestyle products. The strategy to move users beyond core news is working, as almost a third of digital subscribers exclusively pay for non-news products like Games, Cooking, or The Athletic. This diversification helps insulate revenue streams; for instance, digital-only subscription revenues grew 14.0% year-over-year to $367.4 million in Q3 2025.
This leads directly to the value of Multi-Product Bundles, which offer single-price access to news plus lifestyle content. By the end of Q3 2025, approximately 6.27 million subscribers were utilizing these bundles. This segment now represents 51% of the total subscriber base, up from 46% a year prior. The shift away from single-product news reliance is deliberate, evidenced by the number of news-only digital subscribers falling 30% year-on-year as the company pushed bundling.
For non-reading time, The New York Times Company offers Deep Engagement through audio and video content. While specific revenue figures for these verticals aren't always isolated, the overall digital growth is tied to these product enhancements. Management highlighted advances in video journalism and the conversion of award-winning podcasts into video shows as key strategic areas in Q3 2025.
The Ad-Free Digital Experience is a key component of the premium tier value. The success of the paid model, which allows for this cleaner interface, is shown by the 14.0% growth in digital-only subscription revenues, which substantially outpaced the 7.1% decline in print advertising revenues in Q3 2025. The focus on digital subscription revenue growth, projected between 13-16% for Q4 2025, confirms the premium access model as the primary value driver.
Here is a snapshot of key financial and operational metrics underpinning these value propositions for Q3 2025:
| Metric | Amount/Value (Q3 2025) | Year-over-Year Change |
| Total Subscribers | 12.33 million | N/A |
| Digital-Only Subscribers | 11.76 million | N/A |
| Bundle/Multiproduct Subscribers | 6.27 million | Represents 51% of total subscribers |
| Digital-Only ARPU | $9.79 | Up 3.6% |
| Digital-Only Subscription Revenue | $367.4 million | Up 14.0% |
| Total Subscription Revenue | $494.6 million | Up 9.1% |
| Digital Advertising Revenue | $98.1 million | Up 20.3% |
| Total Revenue | $700.8 million | Up 9.5% |
| Operating Profit | $104.8 million | Up 36.6% |
| Free Cash Flow (9 Months) | $392.9 million | Up from $237.7 million in 2024 |
The value proposition is further reinforced by the financial health derived from this model:
- Digital-only subscription revenues grew 14.0% to $367.4 million.
- Digital advertising revenues increased 20.3% to $98.1 million.
- The company added approximately 460,000 net digital-only subscribers in the quarter.
- The company repurchased 482,833 shares for approximately $27.3 million during the quarter.
The shift in focus is clear, as print subscription revenues actually decreased 3.0% to $127.2 million in Q3 2025.
Finance: draft 13-week cash view by Friday.
The New York Times Company (NYT) - Canvas Business Model: Customer Relationships
You're looking at how The New York Times Company (NYT) keeps its paying audience engaged and growing, which is the whole game for them now. The relationship strategy is all about making the bundle so valuable that users happily move past promotional rates. It's a defintely sophisticated approach to reader retention.
Digital Paywall Model: Metered access to drive subscription conversion.
The core relationship driver is the metered paywall, designed to convert casual readers into committed subscribers. The goal is to get users to hit that wall and see the value in paying for unlimited access. This model is clearly working, as evidenced by the subscriber growth figures.
- Net digital-only subscriber adds in Q3 2025 were approximately 460,000.
- Total digital-only subscribers reached 11.76 million as of the end of Q3 2025.
- Total subscribers across all products stood at 12.33 million in Q3 2025.
Data-Driven Personalization: Using first-party data to recommend content and bundles.
The New York Times Company is using its first-party data-what you read, what you skip, what you engage with-to make the product stickier. This data isn't just for content recommendations; it's also monetized through advertising. Digital advertising revenue jumped a strong 20.3% year-over-year to $98.1 million in Q3 2025, partly supported by innovative AI-powered ad products like Brand Match that use this proprietary data for targeting.
High-Touch Customer Service: Dedicated support for print and digital subscribers.
While the focus is digital scale, the relationship still requires human intervention for complex issues. For instance, if you decide to cancel a subscription, the process requires you to chat with a designated "Care Advocate", indicating a structured, high-touch approach at the point of churn to potentially save the relationship or gather feedback.
Community Building: Interactive features like comments and live events (DealBook Summit).
Engagement is deepened by moving beyond static text. The strategy includes expanding video journalism, converting award-winning podcasts into video shows, and rolling out a new watch tab within the Times app. This push into more interactive and visual formats is key to embedding the product into the user's daily routine, which supports pricing power.
Price Tiering: Promotional offers transitioning to higher, tenured pricing (ARPU of $9.79 in Q3 2025).
This is where the strategy shows its financial success. The company is actively moving subscribers off promotional rates and implementing price increases for tenured customers, validating the perceived value of the ecosystem. Here's the quick math on the result of that pricing power:
| Metric | Value (Q3 2025) | Year-over-Year Change |
|---|---|---|
| Total Digital-Only ARPU | $9.79 | 3.6% increase |
| Digital-Only Subscription Revenue | $367.4 million | 14.0% increase |
| Total Subscription Revenue | $494.6 million | 9.1% increase |
The bundle, which includes The Athletic, Games, Cooking, and Wirecutter, is the mechanism used to justify these price step-ups. At the end of Q2 2025, 6.02 million subscribers were on a bundle or multi-product offering.
The New York Times Company (NYT) - Canvas Business Model: Channels
You're looking at how The New York Times Company gets its content and products into the hands of its audience as of late 2025. It's a multi-front operation, heavily weighted toward digital, but still maintaining legacy infrastructure.
NYTimes.com Website: Primary digital distribution and subscription portal
The NYTimes.com website is the core digital hub, serving both as the primary news delivery system and the main subscription portal. As of the end of the third quarter of 2025, The New York Times Company had a total digital-only subscriber base of 12.33 million. This digital channel drove significant financial results, with digital-only subscription revenues reaching $367.4 million in Q3 2025, a year-over-year increase of 14.0%. The average revenue per user (ARPU) for these digital-only subscriptions stood at $9.79 for the quarter. The website also serves as a key platform for digital advertising, which saw revenue increase by 20.3% year-over-year in Q3 2025. To be fair, the overall digital push means the website is now the primary gateway for bundling products, with bundle and multiproduct subscribers accounting for 51% of the digital-only base, totaling approximately 6.27 million users as of September 30, 2025.
Here's a quick look at the subscriber mix driving that digital revenue:
| Subscriber Type | Count (as of Sept 30, 2025) | Revenue Contribution Context |
| Total Digital-Only Subscribers | 12.33 million | Core digital audience base. |
| Bundle/Multiproduct Subscribers | 6.27 million | Represents 51% of digital-only base. |
| News-Only Subscribers | 1.56 million | Single-product digital news readers. |
| Other Single-Product Subscribers | 3.92 million | Subscribers to Games, Cooking, or The Athletic only. |
Dedicated Mobile Apps: News, Games, Cooking, and The Athletic apps
The dedicated mobile apps are crucial for engagement, especially with the success of the non-news offerings. The New York Times Company portfolio includes distinct apps for News, Games, Cooking, and The Athletic. The growth in bundle subscribers, which reached 6.27 million, directly reflects the channel strength of the non-news apps like Games and Cooking, as these bundles offer the newspaper alongside those services. The company also reported that in 2024, its websites and mobile applications had a monthly average of approximately 93 million unique visitors in the United States. The Athletic, as part of the overall digital offering, contributes to the total subscriber count and digital revenue streams. The company is evolving the app experience, for instance, by introducing a TikTok-like vertical video feature in Q3 2025.
Print Distribution Network: Domestic and international home-delivery and single-copy sales
While the focus is digital, the print distribution network still exists, though it's shrinking. Print subscription revenues saw a decline of -3.0% year-over-year in Q3 2025. The goal here is to generate as much profit as possible from print to fund the digital transition. For context, using the latest available audited data from the end of 2024, The Times' average daily print circulation was approximately 253,000 for weekdays and 623,000 for Sunday. The company relies on a complex physical network, including owning one print site in College Point, Queens, with the other 22 print sites being under contract. Distribution is handled by over 600 third-party partners delivering to around 350 markets across the US.
Third-Party Platforms: Social media, search engines, and news aggregators
The New York Times Company uses social media and search engines to drive traffic and awareness, which ultimately feeds the subscription funnel. The company's digital advertising revenue growth of 20.3% in Q3 2025 suggests successful monetization across various digital surfaces, which includes distribution via third-party platforms. Furthermore, the ongoing copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft highlights a critical, albeit adversarial, channel relationship concerning content usage for AI training models. The Times acknowledged a $2.4 million pre-tax cost related to this lawsuit in Q3 2025.
Email Newsletters: Curated content delivery for retention and engagement
Email newsletters are a key retention tool, delivering curated content directly to the user's inbox. Digital advertising revenue is explicitly stated to include revenue from email ads, indicating this channel is monetized. While specific Q3 2025 email engagement statistics like open or click-through rates aren't provided, the inclusion of email in the digital advertising revenue category confirms its role as a direct distribution and monetization channel. The overall strategy aims to widen the number of people who use and engage deeply with The Times.
Finance: draft Q4 2025 channel efficiency report by January 15th.The New York Times Company (NYT) - Canvas Business Model: Customer Segments
You're looking at the customer base for The New York Times Company as of late 2025, and it's clear the focus is squarely on digital scale and product diversification. The core of the business now rests on a massive, growing digital audience.
The total paying subscriber base reached 12.33 million as of the third quarter of 2025, with the digital-only segment driving nearly all of that growth. Honestly, the shift is almost complete.
Here's a look at the key groups making up that base:
- Core News Subscribers: Loyal readers valuing political and global coverage.
- Multi-Product/Bundle Subscribers: Users engaging with News plus Games and Cooking.
- Digital-Only Subscribers: The primary growth engine.
- Digital Advertisers: Brands targeting an educated, affluent readership.
- Print Subscribers: A legacy segment with declining volume but sticky revenue.
The success of the bundling strategy is evident in the mix. Multi-Product/Bundle Subscribers now represent 51% of the total subscriber base as of Q3 2025, up from 46% a year prior. This group is key because they typically have lower churn and higher lifetime value.
The Digital-Only Subscribers segment is the one you need to watch; it hit 11.76 million in Q3 2025, following a net addition of 460,000 new digital-only subscribers in that quarter alone. This growth is pushing the company closer to its goal of 15 million digital subscribers by 2027.
We can map the key metrics for these segments in the table below:
| Customer Segment Metric | Value/Statistic (Q3 2025) |
| Total Subscribers | 12.33 million |
| Digital-Only Subscribers | 11.76 million |
| Net Digital-Only Adds (Q3 2025) | 460,000 |
| Multi-Product Subscribers (% of Total Base) | 51% |
| Digital-Only ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) | $9.79 |
| Digital-Only Subscription Revenue Growth (YoY) | 14.0% |
| Print Subscription Revenue Change (YoY) | Decreased 3% to $127.2 million |
| Digital Advertising Revenue Growth (YoY) | Increased 20.3% |
For Digital Advertisers, the appeal is the quality of the audience they reach. The strong growth in digital advertising revenue, up 20.3% year-over-year in Q3 2025, shows brands are willing to pay a premium to access this engaged base. The digital-only ARPU of $9.79 also shows pricing power is increasing for the core news product.
Finally, the Print Subscribers segment is clearly shrinking, evidenced by print subscription revenue falling 3% year-over-year to $127.2 million. Still, this segment remains a source of high Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) relative to the digital base, even as the company actively steers users toward the digital bundles.
Finance: draft 13-week cash view by Friday.
The New York Times Company (NYT) - Canvas Business Model: Cost Structure
You're looking at where The New York Times Company is spending its money to keep that global news engine running as of late 2025. It's a mix of old-school logistics and cutting-edge digital investment.
Total operating costs for The New York Times Company in the third quarter of 2025 reached $596.0 million. That's up 5.8 percent compared to the third quarter of 2024. If you strip out the special items, the adjusted operating costs were $569.4 million, an increase of 6.2 percent year-over-year.
Journalism Costs
The core expense, supporting that large, global newsroom, is baked into the Cost of Revenue. Cost of Revenue itself climbed to $349.1 million in Q3 2025, up 5.2 percent from the prior year period. This increase was driven mainly by higher journalism costs, alongside higher subscriber servicing and advertising servicing costs.
Technology and Product Development
Investment in the digital platform is clearly a priority. Product development costs specifically rose to $67.0 million in the third quarter of 2025, which is up 9.8 percent from Q3 2024. This spending reflects efforts to enhance the digital experience.
- Higher compensation and benefits drove some of this increase.
- Higher software licensing expenses were also a factor.
- The company invested heavily in video journalism, transforming podcasts into video shows.
- They introduced a new Watch tab in the flagship Times app.
- Games product development continued with the launch of Pips, a new logic puzzle.
Sales and Marketing
Getting those digital subscribers costs real money. Sales and marketing costs jumped 15.1 percent to $79.6 million in Q3 2025, compared to $69.1 million the year before. A major component of this is customer acquisition spending.
The media expenses, which primarily cover the cost to promote the subscription business, specifically hit $41.3 million in Q3 2025, an 18.0 percent increase from $35.0 million in Q3 2024, largely due to higher brand marketing expenses. That's where a good chunk of your CAC (customer acquisition cost) lives. Honestly, you see that marketing spend rise when they are pushing for those big subscriber adds, like the 460,000 net digital-only adds in the quarter.
Print Production and Distribution
While the focus is digital, there are still fixed costs associated with the physical product. Print subscription revenues decreased 3.0 percent to $127.2 million in Q3 2025, reflecting lower domestic home-delivery and single-copy revenues. The company also had a land sale in Q1 2025 related to its printing and distribution facility in College Point, N.Y., netting approximately $33 million in connection with the lease and subsequent sale.
Generative AI Litigation Costs
Legal expenses related to intellectual property defense are now a line item. The New York Times Company reported Generative AI Litigation Costs of $2.4 million pre-tax in the third quarter of 2025. This compares to $4.6 million for the same period in 2024.
| Cost Category (Q3 2025) | Amount (Millions USD) | Year-over-Year Change |
|---|---|---|
| Total Operating Costs | $596.0 | +5.8 percent |
| Adjusted Operating Costs | $569.4 | +6.2 percent |
| Cost of Revenue | $349.1 | +5.2 percent |
| Sales and Marketing Costs | $79.6 | +15.1 percent |
| Product Development Costs | $67.0 | +9.8 percent |
| Media Expenses (Component of S&M) | $41.3 | +18.0 percent |
| Generative AI Litigation Costs (Special Item) | $2.4 | Change from $4.6M in Q3 2024 |
The New York Times Company (NYT) - Canvas Business Model: Revenue Streams
You're looking at the engine room of The New York Times Company (NYT) right now, and the numbers from Q3 2025 show a clear direction. The total top-line revenue for the quarter hit $700.8 million, which is a solid 9.5% jump year-over-year. Honestly, this growth is almost entirely fueled by the digital side of the house, which is exactly what management planned for.
Here's the quick math on how that $700.8 million was built during the third quarter of 2025:
| Revenue Stream | Q3 2025 Amount (Millions USD) | Year-over-Year Change |
| Digital Subscription Revenue | $367.4 million | Increased 14.0% |
| Print Subscription Revenue | $127.2 million | Decreased 3.0% |
| Digital Advertising Revenue | $98.1 million | Increased 20.3% |
| Affiliate, Licensing, and Other Revenue | $73.9 million | Increased 7.9% |
| Total Advertising Revenue (Digital + Print) | $132.3 million | Increased 11.8% |
| Total Subscription Revenue (Digital + Print) | $494.6 million | Increased 9.1% |
Digital Subscription Revenue remains the single largest component, coming in at $367.4 million for Q3 2025, which was a 14.0% increase from the prior year. This growth is driven by both more digital-only subscribers-they added about 460,000 net new ones this quarter-and an increase in the average revenue per user (ARPU) for digital-only subs, which settled at $9.79. That ARPU bump comes from subscribers moving off promotional rates and price increases for tenured readers. It's defintely the core of the story.
Print Subscription Revenue, on the other hand, is still shrinking, landing at $127.2 million, down 3.0%. This decline is due to fewer domestic home-delivery subscribers and lower single-copy sales, reflecting that ongoing shift in consumption habits.
Digital Advertising Revenue showed strong momentum, hitting $98.1 million, a significant 20.3% year-over-year rise. Management noted this outperformance was due to strong marketer demand and new advertising supply they've been able to offer.
The Affiliate, Licensing, and Other Revenue stream contributed $73.9 million, up 7.9%, largely because of higher licensing revenues. This bucket captures income from various sources, including:
- Licensing agreements, such as the one with Amazon AI mentioned in strategy discussions.
- Affiliate fees generated primarily through Wirecutter product recommendations.
- Revenues from other digital products like Games and Cooking.
Finance: draft 13-week cash view by Friday.
Disclaimer
All information, articles, and product details provided on this website are for general informational and educational purposes only. We do not claim any ownership over, nor do we intend to infringe upon, any trademarks, copyrights, logos, brand names, or other intellectual property mentioned or depicted on this site. Such intellectual property remains the property of its respective owners, and any references here are made solely for identification or informational purposes, without implying any affiliation, endorsement, or partnership.
We make no representations or warranties, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, completeness, or suitability of any content or products presented. Nothing on this website should be construed as legal, tax, investment, financial, medical, or other professional advice. In addition, no part of this site—including articles or product references—constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, advertisement, or offer to buy or sell any securities, franchises, or other financial instruments, particularly in jurisdictions where such activity would be unlawful.
All content is of a general nature and may not address the specific circumstances of any individual or entity. It is not a substitute for professional advice or services. Any actions you take based on the information provided here are strictly at your own risk. You accept full responsibility for any decisions or outcomes arising from your use of this website and agree to release us from any liability in connection with your use of, or reliance upon, the content or products found herein.