Is the media Trump bump back? New York Times' subscriber gains suggest so, but it's complicated.

By Lukas I. Alpert

The Times reported its biggest quarterly subscriber growth in nearly five years, driving big revenue gains. But the company has also diversified its product offerings.

Many media organizations saw big gains in audience and subscribers during the first Trump administration, but less so during the president's second term in office.

During Donald Trump's first term as president, many news organizations saw big gains in audience and subscribers. In his second term, not so much.

Many media watchers have chalked up that decline in interest to various things like Trump fatigue and changing media-consumption habits among younger audiences.

But there are signs that interest is gaining speed as the Trump administration has made a series of sweeping and often controversial changes to the way the country is governed.

New York Times Co. (NYT) reported on Wednesday its biggest digital-subscriber growth in nearly five years in the third quarter, driving big gains in digital subscription and advertising revenue as more readers have been willing to pay to read the Times.

The Times added 460,000 new subscribers in the quarter, double what it had gained in the prior quarter and its largest increase since the fourth quarter of 2020, when the pandemic drove a huge surge in news interest.

While that may suggest there was a spike in reader interest amid the political maelstrom coming out of Washington in recent months, there are caveats.

For starters, the Times has changed the way it counts paying customers. In 2022, the company began counting individual subscribers rather than total subscriptions as it moved toward selling bundled subscriptions, rather than marketing its product offerings like its cooking, games and Wirecutter apps individually.

The Times now says it has 12.3 million total subscribers, 11.8 million of them digital only. That's nearly 5 million more than it had in the fourth quarter of 2020, marking a period of sustained growth unparalleled in most of the news industry.

But in the last quarter, the number of "news-only" subscribers actually went down by 130,000, to 1.56 million, which the Times attributed to the fact that it stopped marketing that product to customers in 2023.

Of the 11.8 million digital subscribers, 3.9 million only subscribe to the Times' non-news products - about a third of the company's total digital subscribers. That figure grew by 330,000 since the previous quarter, making up about 70% of the Times' total subscriber gain for the quarter.

Subscribers who pay for a bundle of digital products, which includes the news package, grew by 250,000 to 6.27 million.

The stock was rising 0.4% in recent afternoon trading, and has tacked on 3.4% amid a five-session win streak. It has now gained 11.4% in 2025, while the S&P 500 index SPX has advanced 16.1%.

The Times is reluctant to peg its growth to a single story or variations in news flow, arguing that it is the result of its model of giving consumers whatever variety of products they demand.

"We're doing this in several ways: by expertly and ambitiously covering the most important news; by expanding our efforts in video, audio and AI to make our reporting more accessible to more people; and by making each of our products more valuable with new content, shows, features, games and other enhancements," Chief Executive Meredith Kopit-Levien said in a call with analysts.

All together, the Times saw its digital-subscription revenue grow 14% from the same quarter the year before, to $367.4 million. It also saw its digital-advertising revenue jump 20% year over year, to $98.1 million.

Average revenue per digital user also climbed 3.6% year over year, to $9.67.

So the Times' digital business is undoubtedly strong, but that is being driven in a significant way by its non-news offerings. Still, interest in its news is growing, too.

The Times has added 970,000 subscribers so far this year and appears on track to possibly surpass its gain of 1.27 million in 2021, although not quite as robust as the 2.1 million it added in 2020.

The paper has forecast digital-subscription revenue gains of between 13% and 16% in the fourth quarter, and digital-advertising gains in the mid-to-high teens.

-Lukas I. Alpert

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11-05-25 1436ET