The New York Times to Paywall ‘The Daily’ and Other Podcasts
The New York Times will look to boost revenue by putting podcasts like “The Daily” behind a paywall.
Starting next month, only the three most recent episodes of “The Daily” will be available to listeners on Spotify and Apple’s podcasting app; to access the full archive, fans will have to pay for a subscription that costs $6 per month or $50 per year.
The changes, first reported by Axios, will apply to several other NYT programs as well, including “The Ezra Klein Show,” “Hard Fork,” and “Modern Love.” Those shows, though, will only have its two most recent episodes available for free.
“The Daily,” hosted by Michael Barbaro and Sabrina Tavernise, is the Times’ rundown of what it considers the biggest news stories of the day. Its one of the most popular podcasts in the country, with the show pulling in the third most listeners between Q1 and Q2 this year — trailing only “The Joe Rogan Experience” and “Crime Junkie,” — according to Edison Research.
Putting its podcasts behind a paywall is a “big part” of “building direct relationships with our customers,” NYT head of subscription growth Ben Cotton told Axios.
“In this case, we can effectively do that on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and using the technology that they provide.”
It’s also a way to drive sales. The NYT has had a nice 2024, with the company’s stock price up 15% year-to-date. Last month, the company reported it had 10.8 million print and digital subscribers, with the vast majority of those subscribers being digital-only. Moving forward, making listeners pay for its most popular shows could help offset declining ad sales.
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