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On the bottom line, adjusted EPS of $0.61 cleared the $0.47 Wall Street forecast, according to Bloomberg, while top-line revenue of $712.2 million — a 12% year-over-year increase — outpaced the roughly $700 million analysts had projected.
Digital-only subscription revenue rose 16.1% year-over-year to $389 million. Digital advertising revenue climbed 31.6% to $93.3 million, which the company attributed to strong marketer demand and growth in advertising supply. CFO William Bardeen attributed a 2.4% gain in digital-only average revenue per user, to $9.77, to a combination of customers graduating off discounted introductory plans and the effect of recent across-the-board price increases.
Net income came in at $87.9 million, up 77.4% from $49.6 million in the first quarter of 2025. Operating profit margin expanded about 350 basis points to 12.7%.
"Q1 was another great quarter, and our results reflect strong demand for the uncompromised journalism and premium lifestyle content that The Times is uniquely capable of delivering," CEO Meredith Kopit Levien said in a statement.
Reader appetite for Times journalism remains strong, Kopit Levien said on the earnings call, though she acknowledged the headwinds the industry faces. "We're able to meet that demand despite operating in a media environment dominated by a small number of tech companies whose moves continue to impact traffic to publishers," she told Bloomberg.
For the second quarter, the Times said it expects digital-only subscription revenue to grow between 14% and 17%, and digital advertising revenue to increase by a high-teens percentage. Total revenue from subscriptions is expected to rise 10% to 12%.
Among the legal disputes on the Times' docket is a lawsuit it has brought against Microsoft and OpenAI, alleging that those companies trained AI products on its published journalism without authorization. The company recorded $4.2 million in pre-tax generative AI litigation costs in the quarter. Operating costs rose 7.7% in the quarter, with the company attributing the increase to higher compensation and benefits expenses.