For $5 a week you can get music with 'All the News That's Fit to Print.'
Spotify and the New York Times announced a partnership today that will bundle a one-year digital subscription to the paper of record with one year of free access to Spotify's premium, ad-free subscription tier for $5 per week. The offer includes access to all the Times' stories on its site, as well as its apps, podcasts and curated selection of e-books, according to a press release.
“At the Times we are not only dedicated to helping our readers understand the rapidly changing world around them, but also to helping them live better lives,” said Meredith Kopit Levien, the Times Company's evp and chief revenue officer, in a statement accompanying the announcement. “News and music have gone hand-in-hand since the early days of radio, and because personalization and curation are central to what both the Times and Spotify do so well, we created an experience for Times readers that gives them access to all the news and all the music that they want in one premier subscription.”
The partnership makes sense for both sides, as each company needs to continue growing digital subscribers in order to offset losses elsewhere. The Times is in the midst of both a precipitous decline in print ad revenue -- which dropped 18.5 percent in the quarter ended Nov. 2, according to Politico -- and a rapid increase in the rate of digital subscribers, largely spurred by the recent U.S. election and the subsequent executive-level transition, which now account for nearly 60 percent of its annual revenue.