News

The Australian says it has 30,000 paying digital subscribers

News Limited says it has beaten its initial internal targets for digital subscriptions to The Australian, with 30,000 paying subscribers.

However, the company has not broken down how many of those have bought a digital pass, a digital and print package, or made an individual purchase through its tablet apps.

A further 10,000 print subscribers have accepted a free 12 month digital subscription.

The numbers are the first News Limited has released since its paywall started charging at the end of January.

The chief operating officer of The Australian John Allan said: “Clearly we are still in very early days, and we are learning every day, but thisis an extremely encouraging start. The number of consumers who have trialled our product, and subsequently taken up the subscription offer, has comfortably exceeded both our internal sweepstakes and our budgets.

“This isn’t just about the headline number though – all our metrics are heading in the right direction. Critically, with print circulation remaining steady, we are growing overall paid sales of The Australian and we are earning more digital revenue under the new subscription model than we were under the advertising-only model.”

The release of data from News Limited follows a similar move by Fairfax Media which offered some information about is digital audiences for the SMh and The Age last month.

Allan added: “Additionally, the launch has boosted print subscriptions – many people have chosen to take up the print and digital bundles – and we are gathering extremely valuable customer data.”

The announcement said: ” The Australian is not detailing breakdown between these channels at this stage, but will do so when expected changes to the Audit Bureau of Circulation’s reporting comes into effect in the coming months.”

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