Technology

Ranked: The Most Popular Paid Subscription News Websites

Published

3 years ago

April 26, 2021

Carmen Ang

Article/Editing:

Raul Amoros

Ranked: The Most Popular Subscription News Websites

While paywalls are becoming increasingly more popular among news websites, most consumers still aren’t willing to pay for their online news.

In fact, a recent survey by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism reveals that only 20% of Americans pay for digital news, and of those that do, the majority subscribe to only one brand.

This begs the question—which news outlets are audiences willing to pay for?

Using data from FIPP and CeleraOne, this graphic looks at the most popular news websites across the globe, based on their total number of paid subscriptions.

*Note: This report relies on publicly available data, and should not be considered an exhaustive list.

The Full Breakdown

With 7.5 million subscriptions, The New York Times (NYT) takes the top spot on the list. 2020 was an exceptionally strong year for the outlet—by Q3 2020, the NYT had generated the same amount of revenue from digital subscriptions as it had for the entire year of 2019.

Rank	Publication	Paid Subscriptions
1	🇺🇸 The New York Times	6,100,000
2	🇺🇸 The Washington Post	3,000,000
3	🇺🇸 The Wall Street Journal	2,400,000
4	🇺🇸 Game Informer	2,100,000
5	🇬🇧 Financial Times	1,100,000
6	🇺🇸 The Athletic	1,000,000
7	🇬🇧 The Guardian	790,000
8	🇯🇵 Nikkei	769,000
9	🇬🇧 The Economist	516,000
10	🇨🇳 Caixin	510,000
11	🇩🇪 Bild	494,000
12	🇬🇧 The Sunday Times	337,000
13	🇬🇧 The Telegraph	320,000
14	🇺🇸 The Atlantic	300,000
15	🇮🇹 Corriere Della Sera	300,000
16	🇫🇷 Le Monde	300,000
17	🇺🇸 The Boston Globe	270,000
18	🇦🇷 La Nacion	260,000
19	🇦🇷 Clarin	260,000
20	🇫🇷 L'equipe	259,000
21	🇺🇸 Los Angeles Times	253,000
22	🇸🇪 Aftonbladet	250,000
23	🇺🇸 The New Yorker	240,000
24	🇵🇱 Wyborcza	240,000
25	🇧🇷 Folha de S.Paulo	236,000
26	🇸🇪 Dagens Nyheter	208,000
27	🇺🇸 Business Insider	200,000
28	🇫🇷 Mediapart	170,000
29	🇳🇴 VG	150,000
30	🇺🇸 Wired	142,000
31	🇨🇦 The Globe and Mail	139,000
32	🇩🇪 Welt	132,000
33	🇳🇴 Aftenposten	119,000
34	🇫🇷 Le Figaro	110,000
35	🇺🇸 Chicago Tribune	100,000
36	🇺🇸 Star Tribune	100,000
37	🇳🇴 Dagbladet	100,000
38	🇫🇮 Helsingin Sanomat	100,000

The Times is the most popular by a landslide—it has over double the number of subscriptions than the second outlet on the list, The Washington Post. Yet, while WaPo is no match for NYT, it still boasts a strong following, with approximately 3 million paid subscriptions as of Q4 2020.

Japanese outlet Nikkei ranks number one among the non-English news websites. It’s the largest business newspaper in Japan, mainly focusing on markets and finance, but also covering politics, sports, and health.

Legacy Papers: Which Websites Come From Traditional Media?

Most of the websites on this list stem from traditional media. Because of this, they’ve had years to establish themselves as trusted sources, and win over loyal readers.

Interestingly, more than half of the outlets included in this ranking are at least 100 years old.

Publication	Year Launched	Age (Years)
🇬🇧 The Guardian	1821	200
🇬🇧 The Sunday Times	1821	200
🇫🇷 Le Figaro	1826	195
🇸🇪 Aftonbladet	1830	190
🇬🇧 The Economist	1843	178
🇺🇸 Chicago Tribune	1847	173
🇺🇸 NYT	1852	169
🇬🇧 The Telegraph	1855	166
🇺🇸 The Atlantic	1857	164
🇳🇴 Aftenposten	1860	160
🇸🇪 Dagens Nyheter	1864	157
🇺🇸 Star Tribune	1867	154
🇳🇴 Dagbladet	1869	152
🇦🇷 La Nacion	1870	151
🇺🇸 The Boston Globe	1872	149
🇮🇹 Corriere Della Sera	1876	145
🇺🇸 Washington Post	1877	144
🇯🇵 Nikkei.com	1876	144
🇺🇸 LA Times	1881	140
🇬🇧 Financial Times	1888	133
🇺🇸 Wall Street Journal	1889	132
🇫🇮 Helsingin Sanomat	1889	132
🇧🇷 Folha de S.Paulo	1921	100
🇺🇸 The New Yorker	1925	96
🇨🇦 The Globe and Mail	1936	85
🇫🇷 Le Monde	1944	77
🇦🇷 Clarin	1945	76
🇳🇴 VG	1945	76
🇫🇷 L'equipe	1946	75
🇩🇪 Welt	1946	75
🇩🇪 Bild	1952	69
🇵🇱 Wyborcza	1989	32
🇺🇸 Game Informer	1991	30
🇺🇸 Wired	1993	28
🇺🇸 Business Insider	2007	14
🇫🇷 Mediapart	2008	13
🇨🇳 Caixin	2009	12
🇺🇸 The Athletic	2016	5

Yet, undeterred by these well-established outlets, a few scrappy websites made the cut despite a shorter history. Four out of the 38 websites are less than 20 years old.

The Athletic is the newest outlet to make the ranking. Established in 2016, the outlet’s target demographic is die-hard sports fans who miss the days of in-depth, quality sports writing.

The Need For Trusted Sources

Amidst the global pandemic, issues involving misinformation and fake news have helped reaffirm the important role that trusted news sources play in the dissemination of public information.

With this in mind, it’ll be interesting to see what the future holds for digital media consumption. With paywalls becoming increasingly more common, will consumers jump on board and eventually be more willing to pay for their news?

Related Topics:news media traditional media digital media media trust The New York Times

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Charting the Next Generation of Internet

In this graphic, Visual Capitalist has partnered with MSCI to explore the potential of satellite internet as the next generation of internet innovation.

Graphics & Design

Alejandra Dander

A long-form graphic with a bubble chart showing the potential subscriber base of satellite internet, bar charts showing the number of active satellites, and MSCI Next-Generation Internet index performance. The graphic shows satellite internet as a possible way to get the world online and provides further details of the MSCI Next-Generation Internet Indexes.

Could Tomorrow’s Internet be Streamed from Space?

In 2023, 2.6 billion people could not access the internet. Today, companies worldwide are looking to innovative technology to ensure more people are online at the speed of today’s technology.

Could satellite internet provide the solution?

In collaboration with MSCI, we embarked on a journey to explore whether tomorrow’s internet could be streamed from space.

Satellite Internet’s Potential Customer Base

Millions of people live in rural communities or mobile homes, and many spend much of their lives at sea or have no fixed abode. So, they cannot access the internet simply because the technology is unavailable.

Satellite internet gives these communities access to the internet without requiring a fixed location. Consequently, the volume of people who could get online using satellite internet is significant:

Area	Potential Subscribers
Households Without Internet Access	600,000,000
RVs	11,000,000
Recreational Boats	8,500,000
Ships	100,000
Commercial Aircraft	25,000

Advances in Satellite Technology

Satellite internet is not a new concept. However, it has only recently been that roadblocks around cost and long turnaround times have been overcome.

NASA’s space shuttle, until it was retired in 2011, was the only reusable means of transporting crew and cargo into orbit. It cost over $1.5 billion and took an average of 252 days to launch and refurbish.

In stark contrast, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 can now launch objects into orbit and maintain them at a fraction of the time and cost, less than 1% of the space shuttle’s cost.

	Average Rocket Turnaround Time	Average Launch/Refurbishment Cost
Falcon 9*	21 days	< $1,000,000
Space Shuttle	252 days	$1,500,000,000 (approximately)

Satellites are now deployed 300 miles in low Earth orbit (LEO) rather than 22,000 miles above Earth in Geostationary Orbit (GEO), previously the typical satellite deployment altitude.

What this means for the consumer is that satellite internet streamed from LEO has a latency of 40 ms, which is an optimal internet connection. Especially when compared to the 700 ms stream latency experienced with satellite internet streamed from GEO.

What Would it Take to Build a Satellite Internet?

SpaceX, the private company that operates Starlink, currently has 4,500 satellites. However, the company believes it will require 10 times this number to provide comprehensive satellite internet coverage.

Charting the number of active satellites reveals that, despite the increasing number of active satellites, many more must be launched to create a comprehensive satellite internet.

Year	Number of Active Satellites
2022	6,905
2021	4,800
2020	3,256
2019	2,272
2018	2,027
2017	1,778
2016	1,462
2015	1,364
2014	1,262
2013	1,187

Next-Generation Internet Innovation

Innovation is at the heart of the internet’s next generation, and the MSCI Next Generation Innovation Index exposes investors to companies that can take advantage of potentially disruptive technologies like satellite internet.

You can gain exposure to companies advancing access to the internet with four indexes:

MSCI ACWI IMI Next Generation Internet Innovation Index
MSCI World IMI Next Generation Internet Innovation 30 Index
MSCI China All Shares IMI Next Generation Internet Innovation Index
MSCI China A Onshore IMI Next Generation Internet Innovation Index

MSCI thematic indexes are objective, rules-based, and regularly updated to focus on specific emerging trends that could evolve.

Click here to explore the MSCI thematic indexes

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