NYT digital circulation (not just online traffic) exceeds print

A 73 percent gain, when competitors were topping out in single digits, suggests creative reallocation or accounting as much as anything else.

 

It's actually pretty simple: You can't include online subscriptions unless they're paid. In the past year, The New York Times has had about 670,000 new subscribers because it's made regular online readers pay. That's also how The Wall Street Journal topped USA Today a few years ago.

 

NYT doesn't require any kind of fancy workaround to keep reading for free. Follow their Twitter feeds and click the links from there to read to your heart's content.

 

So they have more than 900,000 people who are actually paying? Or does that include people who take the first 20 (now 10) articles for free and then are asked to pay? If they have 900,000 actual paying subscribers, I will be impressed.

 

As I understand it, you have to pay to be counted.

 

OK but I don't see that spelled out anywhere in the linked article. The way I see it is you get people's data and then they're in your "circulation" base (much like the print "verified" circulation, which isn't exactly paid). I have the NYTimes app on my phone, all I get is Top News and then they ask me to pay whenever I click on anything else, but I wonder if I count as a subscriber.

 

It is spelled out:

If you didn't pay, you're not counted.

 

I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be dense, but where in that clip does it spell out that digital subscribers must be paid to count?

 

I agree that it's written poorly, but that's what they're trying to establish in those paragraphs. Restricted access for digital editions and paid/verified circulation for any format.

 

Until I see otherwise, I am going to argue this point.

I will use myself as an example: As I said, I have it on my phone. I went to the App Store and downloaded the NYTimes app and I click it every day. I get Top News for free and then get a prompt to pay for anything else. I always decline.

And it's similar with my desktop -- I get my 10 articles a month and they have my email address and all that, I am basically a non-paying member of their club.

I don't think there's anything in that literature that tells me whether or not I count in "circulation."

EDIT: These numbers are jimmied all the time. Notice the San Jose Mercury News as the fifth-biggest paper. Prior to two years ago they were like 250,000 circulation, then they stripped away the Contra Costa Times and Oakland Tribune banners and counted all of that as their own circulation and immediately doubled in size.

 

If you subscribe to it on your Nook you should be able to get online version without the 10 article limit.

I have the NYT on my Kindle and was able to register that subscription with The Times to get unlimited on line use.