Local newspapers might be going out of business, and the news industry might be ailing, but maybe journalism isn’t dead after all. In the third quarter, The New York Times ($NYT) added 260K paid digital subscribers, surpassing a record 11M subscribers, a key milestone for one of America’s oldest and largest national publications.

• The milestone growth was slower than investors expected but helped revenue grow 7% to $640M — adjusted operating profits soared 16% to $104.2M during the same period.
• Improving profitability came from increases in higher-yield digital subscription and advertising revenue, as well as the first-ever profit for The Athletic, a sports publication that NYT bought in 2022 for $550M.

Got any games on your phone? While news is The Times’ backbone, its diversification into other segments — such as games, cooking, sports, and affiliate content — has helped it beef up its per-subscriber revenue and introduce a younger audience to the publication. This strategy might assist NYT as it aims to reach 15M digital subscribers by the end of 2027 — but that’s a steep demand, requiring ~333K new subscribers per quarter to meet that target. Investors may be skeptical about this goal, especially withNYT

up just 9.8% year-to-date.