NYT debuts family subscription plans
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The New York Times. Photographer: Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The New York Times on Monday introduced a new family subscription offering, the company's head of subscription growth Ben Cotton told Axios.
Why it matters: It's part of a larger effort at the Times to lure more subscribers and keep them engaged for longer through bundled packages.
- Subscribers on a family plan are "much more likely to stay with us and drive retention," Cotton said.
- Family subscriptions could also allow the company to reach new subscribers who wouldn't necessarily be interested in buying a subscription on their own.
Zoom in: Subscribers can get the "All Access Family" plan, which includes all of the Times' core news coverage as well as its lifestyle products, or the "Games Family" plan, which only includes full access to the Times' subscription games, such as "Spelling Bee" and "The Crossword."
- Both new plans will be available to all existing and new subscribers, Cotton said.
- The plans are designed to give any group of four individuals access to the same shared plan that's billed to one account. The Times will not dictate how a particular group wants to define "family," meaning the subscription can be shared among relatives and/or friends.
- Each user who participates in a family plan will still have the ability to log into their own, individual account to customize their experience.
Between the lines: The "All Access Family" plan is available for $30 per month, depending on promotional pricing. The "Games Family" plan is available for $10 per month.
- To start, the plan will only be available through a monthly pricing plan, but the Times could explore other payment interval options in the future, Cotton said.
By the numbers: The Times hopes to reach 15 million subscribers by the end of 2027. The vast majority (95%) of its 11.88 million subscribers currently pay to access the digital-only versions of the Times' products.
- Cotton said each Family Plan subscription will be counted as two subscribers, regardless of the number of people actually added to the Family Plan.
Zoom out: Streamers have long offered family subscriptions as a way to recreate the communal viewing experience of traditional television.
- Cotton said the idea of a family plan "is something a lot of users understand and get excited about," which gave the company confidence that users would be excited about the opportunity.
- "We've talked for many years about how the Times in print has long been a shared ritual. We want to create a version of that communal experience in the digital world," he noted.
Of note: The Times in the past has experimented with possibly launching a kids-focused subscription, but ultimately decided to focus on other news-adjacent products.
- Cotton said that while the company is always looking for more ways to engage new users, there's no parallel to draw between the new family plan efforts and its kids product experiments.
The big picture: The Times has made it clear to investors for years that its business strategy is linked to the value of bundles in getting readers to further engage with the Times' journalism across multiple facets of their lives.
- The company added its sports subscription news site, The Athletic, to its all-access bundle in 2022. Its games, recipes, audio journalism and consumer recommendations site Wirecutter are also available as part of the bundle or as standalone subscriptions.
- The storied paper has been exploring new bundle partnerships with other news organizations, something it's done internationally. Axios reported that it began reaching out to U.S. news companies for potential deals in January. It recently brokered a bundle deal with The Economist.
What to watch: To market the new family plan, the Times will set up a series of "family-sized" experiences inspired by its journalism in various cities across the country, including New York, Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles.
