In an attempt to boost subscribers, New York Times Co. is working with Spotify Ltd. to give new digital subscribers to the paper complimentary access to the world’s largest music-streaming service.
The companies announced on Wednesday that readers who buy one-year online subscriptions to the New York Times will also get free unlimited access to Spotify’s premium service, which costs $120 a year.
Meredith Kopit Levien, the Time’s chief revenue officer, said that the unconventional partnership between the 165-year-old print publisher and the disruptive music company is a natural fit. The companies will promote the subscription package on their respective platforms, in addition to teaming up on digital advertising.
“If you think about the places where people spend their time in media, they spend a lot on music and a lot on news,” said Levien, “So it made for a very positive association.”
The deal with Spotify is the latest in the Times’ attempt to continue growing after the November 8 election. The newspaper’s goal of reaching 10 million digital subscribers focuses in part on getting through to younger readers via partnerships with other online services. Following this plan, the Times recently decided to join Snapchat’s Discover platform.
According to ComScore, the Times topped BuzzFeed and Vice Media in November in terms of U.S. millennial readers with 48 million unique visitors. “We’re beginning to focus much more seriously on how many young people we have engaging with us and how we deepen those relationships,” Levien said.
Last quarter the Times signed up a record breaking 276,000 new digital news subscribers, thanks to what some call the “Trump Bump.” President Trump often publicly derides the newspapers, accusing it of unfair coverage of him. But these derisive comments, often in the 140-character-or-less tweet format, have amounted to free advertisements for the paper.
Most recently, Trump accused the Times of being “fake news” for reporting that before their Feb. 9 phone call, Trump had not spoken to President Xi Jinping since Nov. 14, the week after he was elected.
The failing @nytimes does major FAKE NEWS China story saying "Mr.Xi has not spoken to Mr. Trump since Nov.14." We spoke at length yesterday!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 10, 2017
