New York Times NYSE: NYT reported second-quarter revenue growth across subscriptions, advertising and affiliate licensing, while executives highlighted investments in video, product development and journalism as central to the company’s long-term strategy.
Chief Executive Officer Meredith Kopit Levien said the company added 280,000 net new digital subscribers during the quarter, bringing its total subscriber base to 13.4 million. Digital subscription revenue rose 16%, supported by product expansion across news, sports, cooking and games.
“Q2 was a great quarter for The Times,” Kopit Levien said, pointing to audience engagement with its journalism and lifestyle offerings. The company remains on track toward its next subscriber milestone of 15 million, she said.
Revenue and Profit Growth
Chief Financial Officer Will Bardeen said consolidated revenue increased 11% from the prior-year period, while adjusted operating profit, or AOP, increased 16% to approximately $155 million. Adjusted diluted earnings per share rose 19% year over year to $0.69.
- Digital-only subscription revenue increased 16.4% to $408 million.
- Total subscription revenue rose 11.7% to approximately $538 million.
- Total advertising revenue increased 11.3% to $149 million.
- Digital advertising revenue climbed 20.7% to $114 million.
- Affiliate, licensing and other revenue increased about 7% to $75.5 million.
Bardeen said digital-only subscribers were up 13.3% year over year at the end of the quarter, while digital-only average revenue per user increased 3.1%. He attributed the ARPU growth to several factors, including the benefit of a digital bundle price increase implemented in the first quarter for a cohort of tenured subscribers, as well as retention and pricing performance as subscribers moved off promotional offers.
First-half free cash flow was approximately $266 million. The company returned about $160 million to shareholders during the period, including roughly $92 million in share repurchases and $68 million in dividends. Bardeen said free cash flow also benefited from seasonal working-capital timing and a tax-related benefit of approximately $60 million in 2026, most of which is not expected to recur after this fiscal year.
Advertising Outperforms Expectations
Digital and total advertising growth both exceeded the company’s expectations in the second quarter. Kopit Levien said the performance reflected marketer demand, strong engagement across the company’s portfolio and advertising products that generate results for clients.
“Campaigns renew because the ads perform,” she said.
Management said growth was broad-based across its products, including news, games and sports. However, Kopit Levien said video has played only a relatively minor role in advertising growth so far, as the company is still focused on expanding production and engagement before scaling monetization.
Bardeen said higher-than-expected advertising revenue also contributed to adjusted operating-cost growth of 10%, which exceeded the company’s prior guidance. The primary reason was incremental variable compensation associated with financial outperformance, he said.
Sales and marketing costs also rose because of marketing and promotional spending, along with higher advertising-related costs. Bardeen said the company staffed a new middle-market advertising sales team during the quarter to pursue a segment it had not previously served.
He characterized marketing as a disciplined, variable lever rather than a structural shift in costs, noting that the company still drives most subscription starts organically through its journalism and product investments. The company increased its promotional efforts around the World Cup, which contributed to The Athletic’s largest audiences to date, according to Kopit Levien.
Video Investment and Platform Traffic Risks
The company is expanding video production as it seeks to become “as preferred a brand for watching the news as it is for reading and listening,” Kopit Levien said. The Times is producing thousands of original videos per quarter across reporter-led videos, news clips, visual investigations and longer-form shows.
During the quarter, the company launched a Shows tab in its flagship app, adding a destination for long-form programming in news, opinion, culture and lifestyle. The addition complements the app’s existing Watch tab and short-form video distributed across the company’s products and external platforms.
Kopit Levien said the company is still in the early stages of its video strategy, particularly for longer-form shows, but sees an opportunity to reach new audiences and generate greater returns from its journalism investments over time.
She also acknowledged that major technology platforms continue to send less traffic to publishers. The Times is not immune to those changes, she said, but is seeking to reduce its reliance on intermediaries by investing in differentiated coverage, direct relationships with audiences, app experiences and video.
The company also recently announced a local-news product in at least one market. Kopit Levien described the initiative as an experiment involving collaboration with a local participant and said it is intended in part to support the broader local-journalism ecosystem.
Third-Quarter Outlook
For the third quarter, the company expects digital-only subscription revenue to increase 12% to 15% and total subscription revenue to rise 9% to 11%. Bardeen said the subscription outlook reflects factors including subscriber growth, the mix between higher-priced bundles and lower-priced single-product subscriptions, and pricing step-up performance.
He noted that the prior-year paywalling of The Mini affects the comparison because it added lower-priced single-product subscribers to the mix in last year’s third quarter.
New York Times expects digital advertising revenue to grow by the mid- to high teens in the third quarter, with total advertising revenue expected to increase by high single digits to low double digits. Affiliate, licensing and other revenue is projected to rise by low to mid-single digits, reflecting in part a timing shift in a Wirecutter affiliate partner’s marketing promotion that occurred in the second quarter this year rather than the third quarter.
Adjusted operating costs are expected to increase 8% to 9% in the third quarter as the company continues to invest in journalism, digital products and video.
About New York Times (NYSE:NYT)
The New York Times Company is a publicly traded media organization best known for publishing The New York Times newspaper and operating the NYTimes.com digital platform. The company produces daily print and digital journalism covering national and international news, opinion pieces, feature stories, and multimedia content. Alongside its flagship newspaper, the firm offers a range of subscription-based services, including Times Cooking, NYT Games, podcasts and newsletters, designed to engage a broad audience of readers and advertisers.
Founded in 1851 by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones, The New York Times has built a reputation for in-depth reporting and investigative journalism.
This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to contact@marketbeat.com.
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