The New York Times And Spotify’s Unlikely Alliance With New Bundle Offer

In what is probably one of the unlikeliest of pairings in internet history, The New York Times has just unveiled a new offer to customers by bundling its “All-Access” package with Spotify’s “Premium” streaming option. This is an apparent attempt to convince customers to keep paying for regular subscription fees in a world where free music and news is fast becoming the dominant force.

The one-year subscription service at The New York Times that is now being bundled with the premium streaming by Spotify costs $120, Bloomberg reports. While many might think that this is a rather unusual partnership, this isn’t actually the case says Meredith Kopit Levien, the chief revenue officer of the Times.

According to her, between the established news publication and the hot music streaming service, the two entities cover the areas where users spend the most time on when surfing the web; news and music. As a result, it was actually a natural fit that the two companies would join forces to promote the joint subscription.

More than throwing its lot in with Spotify, this development is also a reflection of the publication’s views with regards to its interaction with a younger crowd. Levien mentions how the Times wants to deepen the engagement with an age demographic that isn’t really known to pay much attention to the news but is more than ready to commit to a popular music streaming service.

For those wondering, this offer is only available to those who don’t have a subscription to The New York Times right now, Mashable reports. It’s also not clear how the division of revenue will go between the news organization and Spotify. One would think that it’s an even split, but this is hardly ever the case with deals like this.

In any case, it doesn’t seem like the newspaper company is hurting anytime soon. After the victory of Donald Trump, subscription to the Times actually surged.