New York Times Shutters NYT Now App

New York Times Co. is shutting down NYT Now more than two years after the newspaper launched the mobile app in the hopes it would lure new digital readers with a lower-priced offering.

The app, an effort to give readers a more curated selection of Times stories in a sleeker mobile format, debuted with a subscription price of $8 per month, but failed to gain traction. Only about 20,000 people agreed to pay that price for the product, much lower than the company's goal of 200,000, the Journal reported.

Last year, the Times made NYT Now free in a play to find and convert younger consumers into loyal Times readers.

Like many newsrooms, the Times embarked on a project to create its own mobile properties, such as NYT Opinion (which closed in 2014) and NYT Cooking, to drive digital growth in the face of print declines. With readers gravitating more toward social media services like Facebook, news outlets have struggled to generate readership on their own mobile apps.

In a memo to staff, Kinsey Wilson, executive vice president for product and technology, and David Perpich, senior vice president for product, said that NYT Now "attracted a loyal following," but that the company could now "focus our energy and resources on innovation in our main New York Times products… and on targeting younger readers where they often are: on social platforms."

Messrs. Wilson and Perpich added that the company "did not need a separate lower-priced or limited free offering in the marketplace to drive growth," and that NYT Now helped spur the company to be more conversational and compelling on readers' mobile devices.

NYT Now's closure comes as the Times pins its future on boosting digital revenue, particularly through its branded content division. Last year, the company said it intends to double its digital revenue to $800 million by 2020. In the second quarter, digital advertising fell 6.8%, with weaker display advertising numbers offsetting growth in its sponsored content unit.

Write to Steven Perlberg at steven.perlberg@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 18, 2016 11:55 ET (15:55 GMT)

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