PAID-FOR STRATEGY PAYING DIVIDENDS AT NEWS UK
Sun passes 100k milestone
News UK has released the first comprehensive figures detailing the scale and strength of the readership and growing subscriber base of The Times, Sunday Times and The Sun.
Total paid sales of all News UK titles now averages 2.75 million a day and an ever increasing number of our readers now have an ongoing relationship with one of the titles as regular subscribers - 53 per cent in the case of The Times1.
It has been a good start for The Sun, which only began charging for its online content in August. Sun has reached over 117 thousand subscribers. Nearly 102 thousand are signed up to a paid digital package and a further 15 thousand prepay for the Sun digital package as part of their daily purchase of the paper2. Average daily total paid sales for The Sun across print and digital - are 2.2m (Mon-Sun) which is around -6.5% year-on-year, significantly improved from -11% in the first half of 2013.
The Sun crossed the 100 thousand digital subscriber milestone in four months, compared to the 12 months taken by The Times and Sunday Times following their own move to charging across all platforms over three years ago. Average daily total paid sales in November for The Times (Monday to Saturday) were 527 thousand including casual sales. That is 10 thousand (1.9%) higher than in June 2010 when the paper started charging for all formats3.
The Times and The Sunday Times currently have over 153 thousand active digital subscribers and a further 207 thousand subscribe to the print edition and receive digital benefits as part of their package, confirming strong progress for both titles after three and a half years.
News UK is committed to substantial investment in technical innovation, new apps, perks and exclusive access to football highlights that have helped to attract new subscribers and enhance the commitment of long standing loyalists.
Since 23 November our Sun, Times and Sunday Times readers who subscribe to selected digital packages are able to view video clips of goals and other key moments from the Scottish Premiership and some Glasgow Rangers matches across all devices. The previous day (22nd November) it was confirmed that a new three-year deal, starting in 2015, would allow readers of The Sun, Times and Sunday Times to watch clips of highlights from all 146 UEFA Champions League and all 205 UEFA Europa League matches to ensure News UK's titles are the obvious choice for sports fans in the digital era.
This adds to the portfolio of football content which already offers readers clips from all 380 Barclays Premier League matches for the next three seasons and will provide the best moments from England international friendlies and FA Cup ties from 2014.
Mike Darcey, CEO of News UK said: Today's figures show that combining our world class journalism, new digital content, and growing focus on customer care is a compelling mix, enabling us to strengthen our relationships with our readers, enhance their experience and secure a sustainable future for news. The paid-for model is firmly established and working well at the Times and Sunday Times and is now off to a great start at The Sun, with much more to come.
David Dinsmore, appointed Editor of The Sun in June, said: No one else has sought to charge for digital access to a mass audience newspaper, and, though it's early days, we are encouraged by the strong start achieved by The Sun. After years of steady decline across our industry, it is fantastic to see new readers embracing our great paper on new platforms and loyal Sun supporters locking in to an ongoing and deeper relationship with us.
Our offer of first class news and sport, humour and headlines is increasingly customised for different technologies and I'm encouraged by the number of people who are clearly happy to pay for what until recently was available free of charge. It demonstrates that people are willing to pay a fair price for valuable content .
Ends
Notes to editors
1. The corresponding figure for The Sun will be available in due course.
2. 101,779 subscribers are signed up to a paid digital package and 15,590 customers prepay for the Sun digital package as part of their daily purchase of the paper.
Print subscribers are readers who buy the paper but also want to enjoy the fantastic bundle of benefits of Sun . They can collect unique codes printed in each copy of The Sun every day to initially unlock one month's worth of digital access and from then onwards, by collecting 20 codes each month, members will receive continuous access to The Sun's unrivalled digital content and perks.
The encouraging level of Print mirrors the pattern on The Times and Sunday Times where bundling print products with premium digital offerings have helped slow the decline in print sales.
3. Total paid sales, prior to the introduction of charging, were 517 thousand in June 2010.
For media enquiries please call News UK on 020 7782 8000.
Share this:
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
PAID-FOR STRATEGY PAYING DIVIDENDS AT NEWS UK
