Apple News+ Subscription Growth Blows Away Major Media Sites

David Snow reports via Cult of Mac: A new report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) shows Apple News+ growing its subscription rate about four times as fast as major news sites are. CIRP showed Apple increased its News+ subscriptions in the United States from 15% to 24% between 2020 to 2024, a 9% increase. In that same period, The New York Times and The Washington Post managed a 2% bump apiece and The Wall Street Journal managed a 3% increase. The results come from data measuring how many Apple product buyers say they subscribe to the News+ service.

CIRP also cited a report indicating that the Apple News+ partnership program is increasingly becoming a lifeline for news websites losing revenue, according to major publishers. And as far as the growth of Apple News+ subscription growth is concerned, it may keep growing as long as the user install base for devices keeps growing. "One-quarter of the U.S. base of Apple customers represents tens of millions of users, an enormous audience relative to what individual media outlets can expect on their own," CIRP noted.

Like early Netflix

[vlad30]

Most of the news including magazines in one spot at a reasonable price and far fewer ads to deal with and so far zero junk/scam ads

Re:Like early Netflix

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

Looking at your Sig, I think Friends/Foes was introduced in the late 1990s and I'm certain it was in place before 2009.

Re:Like early Netflix

[mccalli]

Interestingly one of the reasons I don't use it is more adverts, not less. That's because on the web I can ad-block, but in the app I can't.

Re:Like early Netflix

[ihadafivedigituid]

My adblocker is cranked up to "nuke from orbit", so a lot of news sites either block me or hassle me. News+ shows some ads, but it's nothing like the websites--and a lot of paywalled news outlets are on News+ also. I always feel like I'm getting my money's worth.

Re:Like early Netflix

[mccalli]

I sympathise on the username - this is me too [slashdot.org], but I have no idea the email I used and likely don't have access anymore. Never received a single reply from the site each time I try to get hold of it again.

Re:Like early Netflix

[ihadafivedigituid]

We're getting old. :-)

Re:Like early Netflix

[hawk]

get off my lawn!

[besides, I was here before the kids, but it took a while before I was willing to let it place a cookie. In those days, many of us had a folder for .cookies. Allowing cookies by site was years away.
[until that tragic morning, we simply typed in our name when we posted!}

Re:Like early Netflix

[ihadafivedigituid]

I was here for that too, not long after the switch from Chips & Dips. I resisted registering for a long time, preferring to post AC. Hot grits! But I was kind of old for that scene even then. Time catches up with us all ....

Re:Like early Netflix

[LazarusQLong]

Nuke from orbit, It's the only way to be sure.

Re:Like early Netflix

[cayenne8]

Most of the news including magazines in one spot at a reasonable price and far fewer ads to deal with and so far zero junk/scam ads

I must admit, when bored, or on the can...I'll often open up Apple News.

I've yet to really find a compelling reason to switch from the free to the paid version.

I mean, even a lot of the paywall blocked articles they show you, you can just open up the web browser and search and usually find those articles for free on original website....

So, it's not like you miss much on the free version.

Re:Like early Netflix

[LazarusQLong]

yep, that is what i do as well, and like you, I am satisfied with that work around.

Re:Like early Netflix

[Visarga]

I've been using Google's feed of articles but 80% are just dumping ads and popups on top of the content you can hardly read. My usual move is to open in Safari and use reader mode. Google doesn't offer anything like that, of course. News have fallen to the same level with porn sites in 2000's.

News+ does have ads sadly

[Anonymous Cward]

You pay and you still see ads, however, if youâ(TM)ve got at least DNS level adblocking in place, you will not see them on most things except for digital copies of print magazines, but Apple provides an index of legit articles which, if used, will skip them.

Re:Like early Netflix

[93 Escort Wagon]

My wife pays for Apple News+, and I look at it fairly often. It seems less useful and less news-dense than I'd expected. As you scroll down the main page, you start to see a LOT of duplicated stories - which (if you're not looking very closely) gives the illusion that there's a lot of news coverage there.

If you like magazines like the Atlantic, News+ is probably a better deal.

Its bundling ...

[drnb]

Like early Netflix . Most of the news including magazines in one spot at a reasonable price and far fewer ads to deal with and so far zero junk/scam ads

Nope, its bundling. News is bundled with 2TB of cloud storage space, TV, Music, Fitness and Games.

No absolute numbers

[mccalli]

If I grow my subscriber base from 1 to 2, and you grow your subscriber base from 10,000 to 10,001, then I've achieved 100% growth rate and you've only managed 0.01%. I win!

Re:No absolute numbers

[Puc Rotte]

“One-quarter of the US base of Apple customers represents tens of millions of users, an enormous audience relative to what individual media outlets can expect on their own,”

So what the the actual article implies, is that we're talking about an increase from 15% to 24% of Apple customers in the US. Let's take just iPhone users. A quick Googling shows that there are some 135 million active iPhones in the US, meaning they would have about 32 million active subscribers to Apple News+. An increase of about 12 million in a year. That's a pretty significant increase. Of note, though, is that if someone has Apple One (whatever that is), they also get News+ with it.

Re:No absolute numbers

[mccalli]

Exactly, yes - that last point is important. I have access to Apple News+, as do many others I know, and collectively I know only one person that uses it out of 20 or more eligible. Now ok, insert anecdote-not-data comment here, but even so...I have a difficult time imagining everyone who subscribes because they want the family iCloud storage plus Apple TV+ is necessarily going to be opening up Apple News+.

Re:No absolute numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, yes - that last point is important. I have access to Apple News+, as do many others I know, and collectively I know only one person that uses it out of 20 or more eligible. Now ok, insert anecdote-not-data comment here, but even so...I have a difficult time imagining everyone who subscribes because they want the family iCloud storage plus Apple TV+ is necessarily going to be opening up Apple News+.

News outlets in the partner program get paid regardless if you pay for an apple one bundle or you pay for news+ without the bundle.
So long as all 20 of the people in your example have the bundle, they count as income to the news sites.

Re:No absolute numbers

[mccalli]

Interesting - thanks for that. In which case yes, although 'growth in users' is still rather questionable in my mind, growth in actual income may well not be. Passive income at its finest.

Re:No absolute numbers

[fropenn]

Exactly this - the news outlets should be thanking Apple for including News+ in its bundling. If I had to pay for it separately, it would be gone (too many clickbait headlines, recycled social media memes, and ads even in the paid version).

Re:No absolute numbers

[FictionPimp]

I actually use News+ because of apple one. I had no desire to pay for news, but I did want fitness+, 2TB of storage, music, and Apple TV. My wife did as well. So we bought apple one and then I started using news simply because I paid for it. It's pretty nice and it's now my goto for news aggregation.

Re:No absolute numbers

[N1AK]

This is basically what I came to say. I've nothing against News+ and would probably be happy enough knowing £1-2 a month was going to funding news orgs I used but I'm subscribed because a family Apple One subscription makes sense for us and News+ is bundled with it. I expect a lot of News+ isers are the same.

Re:No absolute numbers

[MachineShedFred]

You put your finger on the game right there.

Subscribe to this all-encompassing service that rolls in your iCloud storage, Apple Music and AppleTV+ that you actually want, but also gives you Apple News+.

Hey look we're booming in subscribers to Apple News+!!!

Do most of those subscribers even open the Apple News app and use this? Or did they just subscribe to Apple One because it had 3 other services they actually want?

This is the old bundling game from cable operators and media networks. Large cable companies force you to get some shitty channel you don't even accidentally want to see, and then that media company that distributes the channel crows about how many households they're in.

It's worse than that...

[Roger W Moore]

If Apple News+ grew from 15% to 24% that is not a 9% increase, it's a 9 percentage point increase but almost a 50% increase in absolute numbers assuming the number of Apple users was roughly constant. So the article is not even consistent using the meaningless relative numbers it gives.

Of course what actually matters to these companies is the revenue they get from it. In this case a 2-3% increase in their own subscribers might be worth a lot more to them than some Apple system where Apple takes a large cut of the revenue and shares the rest between multiple organizations.

Re:It's worse than that...

[LazarusQLong]

I believe that simple math problem is head and shoulders more complex than most journalists can even think about. Like you say, the actually meaningful number is the increase of about 60%. I wish journalists would bother, when reporting on a subject, to at least do some research on the subject, but, well.... it seems like many don't

Er ...

[cascadingstylesheet]

... small things grow faster than established big things, then?

In before it gets nerfed

[xack]

Advervultures will be swooping in soon, just like cable tv and Windows.

Re:In before it gets nerfed

[aaarrrgggh]

They have been there for a while.

When going from nothing...

[Targon]

It's always easy for a company to show fast growth in a fairly new product/service. You sold one last year, you sold 10 this year, sell 100 next year, wow, look at the percentage growth!

Re: When going from nothing...

[ZERO1ZERO]

In your example ironically the percentage growth is the same each year ie 1000pc

Re: When going from nothing...

[Targon]

Right, but it still comes down to the same thing, percentage growth will be very high when you are starting with very low numbers. It can take decades before that growth levels out the way you see it for every established company in an industry.

Rewarding the paywall

[chainsaw1]

When I received my first iPhone, the News app was useful and had readable articles

Nowadays, any new article mildly interesting that's not the top headline or the two underneath requires News+.

I personally have found myself using it much less as a result...

Re:Rewarding the paywall

[LazarusQLong]

you can select where you get the news from in News, they have all sorts of news sites, CNN, Wall Street Journal, Fox News, All across the political spectrum, as well as sports news sites. Like Cayenne8 (above) said, for the articles requiring a News+ subscription (like the Wall Street Journal) you can search on google for the article and you'll find it and on their own news site they allow you to read 4 articles/month for free, then you just change your device (iPhone/iPad/laptop/desktop) and you'll get 4 articles for each of them, or change you rip and that should work also, I just change my device, that's enough for me. CNN is always free, I am sure lots of other sites are as well.

People buy news?

[SlashDotCanSuckMy777]

Why bother when its free everywhere else online.

speaking of "blown away"

[Black Parrot]

news.google.com isn't loading for me today.

Re:speaking of "blown away"

[drinkypoo]

news.google.com came right up for me, and even includes my truly local news outlets like Lost Coast Outpost.

Quick!

[Ol Olsoc]

Has the EU become outraged and want to fine Apple yet? Get on the phone, there's gold in them thar Apples!

Re:Quick!

[laughing_badger]

That will depend. If Apple are playing by the rules established to allow free-market economics to operate then the EU will be fine with it. If they are trying to distort the market or socialise the costs of their operations then the EU will step in.

Re:Quick!

[Ol Olsoc]

That will depend. If Apple are playing by the rules established to allow free-market economics to operate then the EU will be fine with it. If they are trying to distort the market or socialise the costs of their operations then the EU will step in.

That's if you think that the EU is trying to regulate fairness. A differential analysis is that they are looking to profit off US businesses.

Re:Quick!

[ACForever]

yes the persecution of poor innocent apple continues.
How can you sleep at night knowing there is such injustice in the world?

Re:Quick!

[Ol Olsoc]

yes the persecution of poor innocent apple continues. How can you sleep at night knowing there is such injustice in the world?

The EU want's US businesses to demand money from. The EU isn't worried about fairness, they just want money. It beats the hell out of having to create things. Just stand at the finish line and demand tribute from the winners.

If the EU was about fairness, they would say "Apple, you are not fair. You cannot sell any of your products in the EU". Full stop.You are hereby banned. Andf your justice is served - the good citizens of the EU are not bothered in any way by the Evil Americans and their immoral companies. They want fairness and want unfair practices and profits banned, nothing works like making a product or service illegal. . But a few billion here and there, and baby gets a new pair of shoes. Apple can decide if they want to be allowed to sell things in the EU. Same goes for Google, and all of the other businesses that the EU demands be less profitable, because profits are obscene and unfair.

Re:Quick!

[ACForever]

LOL

Apple BAD

[hdyoung]

I’m sure this will be cast as some evil Apple world domination plot by a great many people.

Re:Apple BAD

[Anonymous Coward]

We get it. You drank the Kool-Aid. Move on already.

I don't get it

[aaarrrgggh]

I have done free subscriptions to Apple News twice and cancelled after a week the first time, and an hour the second. I currently read NYT, NPR, and BBC, along with two local papers. Most recently I was curious about the WSJ, but found the selection of available articles to be pedestrian at best. I looked for papers with different biases than what I usually read, but found no quality. All I got was more ads that could not be blocked.

I pay for subscriptions to NYT and the two local papers, and see far better value there.

Re:I don't get it

[echo123]

My experience has been just like yours. Except I normally use Android and Ubuntu so I can't actually use Apple News even if I wanted to. Apple News requires Apple hardware. It doesn't work in a web browser** or on Android.

It seems having Apple hardware is a requirement for using Apple News.

Apple News sounds great on paper but in real life just sucks, ...except for those lucky few, the special ones. Surely some people don't mind paying, aren't annoyed by its limitations, and have OSX & 'supported hardware'.

= = ==
** Caveat, I understand Apple News will email subscribers a news digest on a regular basis. Clicking such a magic news digest link will open the original article in a regular web browser.