• by Melynda Fuller , October 17, 2018

Scribd, an unlimited subscription service featuring digital print and audio media, has partnered with The New York Times to offer readers a new bundle.

For $12.99 a month, subscribers can access all of Scribd’s content, including over 1 million books, audiobooks and articles — the entirety of the NYT's output. A digital subscription to The New York Times typically begins at $15.99 a month.

The collaboration offers each company the opportunity to deepen its subscription channels.

"The New York Times is a perfect fit for Scribd — we attract a similar audience of readers who love to learn and are curious about the world, and we both understand how to grow subscription businesses,” Trip Adler, CEO-cofounder, Scribd told Publishers Daily.

“We have a similar view of the future of bundling in the publishing industry. This is just the first step in what will be a long and exciting partnership."

New subscribers will have unlimited access to the NYTimes.com, The New York Times digital archive and The New York Times app via the publisher’s Basic Digital Access plan. 

Scribd has partnerships with all of the “Big Five” book publishers and boasts over 150 million hours spent by readers on its platform. The platform has grown by more than 50% since 2017 and has 750,000+ paying subscribers.

Its collaboration with the NYT represents the company’s first time granting readers full access to a news publisher.

The two entities first paired up in 2017 to offer the Essential Student Bundle, which paired subscriptions to both Scribd’s lineup of content and The New York Times and lasted one semester, or four months at a time, to students.

The new combination subscription is available via a 30-day trial.

Russell Kern, managing director, marketing partnerships at The New York Times, stated: “As we continue to grow our subscription business, it’s important to show potential subscribers that New York Times' reporting reaches well beyond news and politics -- from Styles to Science, Culture to Climate to our investigative work.”

He noted “Scribd’s engaged, diverse and global audience” is a valuable group the NYT wants to attract.