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One plus one equals? Meredith Kopit Levien, president and chief executive officer at The New York Times, speaks onstage during The New York Times DealBook Summit on December 03, 2025. (Photo by David Dee Delgado/Getty Images for The New York Times)
Welcome to the latest edition of Breaker. If this email has been forwarded, you can subscribe here and send your questions and complaints here. If you have a tip contact the 24/7 Breaker Tip Hotline via text or Signal # 551 655 2343. Anonymity guaranteed!
In tonight’s edition, The New York Times recently announced a bump of 310,000 digital-only subscribers. It’s an impressive figure for The Gray Lady, but how they got there required some fuzzy maths. Tonight, we reveal a missing detail in their latest quarterly results that will make it even harder to know exactly how many eyes are on The New York Times.
Also, tonight, a secret Murdoch project is being masterminded by the Murdochs, a top Washington Post editor is poached by the New York Times while a top Gray Lady staffer climbs further up the greasy pole, and Sharon Waxman shares her thoughts about another exodus from her fledgling publication.
And finally, Bari Weiss has launched a raft of new initiatives at The Free Press, including a retreats and excursions arm. So if you’ve ever dreamed of holidaying with other Free Press subscribers (and don’t have access to therapy), read on for all the details.
Mentioned tonight: Meredith Kopit Levien, A.G. Sulzberger, Ellen Pollock, Matea Gold, Rob Copeland, Mohammed Hadi, Pui-Wing Tam, Will Lewis, Sharon Waxman, Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch, Bari Weiss, Brian Williams, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Roy Price, Patrick Soon-Shiong, Robert Allbritton, Pamela Paul, Scott Nover, Darren Aronofsky, Nadia Khomami, Chris Williams, Tariq Panja, Jessica Winter, Belle Burden, Michael Calderone, Emily Rauhala, Will Bardeen, and more.
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All The Subs That’s Fit To Hide
(Exclusive.) When New York Times CEO Meredith Kopit Levien announced at the company's investor day in 2022 that the New York Times would have 15 million subscribers by 2027, many scoffed, believing the goal to be unrealistic.
But credit to Levien and her Gray Lady colleagues (notably the Games and Cooking depts), they are edging in on that target.
The New York Times Company announced earlier this month its first-quarter results for 2026, boasting that they now have 13.08 million subscribers. That’s a net increase of “approximately 310,000 digital-only subscribers” compared to their fourth quarter 2025 results and “approximately 1,460,000 digital-only subscribers” since the same time last year.
It's an astonishing feat, but one, as we previously reported, accomplished with some creative math. Back in November, it was Breaker who revealed the devil is in the details.
Buried on page 12 of the third quarter 2025 results press release, in tiny font in footnote 3, The Times acknowledged they had started counting each "Family Subscription" as two subscribers instead of one, effectively doubling their numbers.
At the time, NYT’s new double-counting method added 235,000 new subscribers, equating to more than half of the 460,000 new subs it claimed at the top of its earnings release.
“Each family subscription is priced higher than a comparable individual subscription and is counted as one billed subscriber and one additional subscriber to reflect the additional entitlements in these subscriptions,” the footnote revealed.
“The additional subscribers represented approximately 2% of total digital-only subscribers as of the end of the third quarter of 2025.”
Proving that the devil is in the details once again, in their most recent results, the New York Times had …
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⁘ As credited in The New York Times, CNBC, Axios, The New York Post, CNN, Bloomberg, The Guardian, and more.
The Last Page of The Murdoch Era
(Exclusive.) Although he does say he will live forever, preparations are underway within Rupert Murdoch’s vast empire for when the 95-year-old departs to the big newsroom in the sky. Breaker has learned of one such project in the works…
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The rest of this newsletter is for paid subscribers.
⁘ Unlock full access to our twice-weekly newsletter and archive.
⁘ As credited in The New York Times, CNBC, Axios, The New York Post, CNN, Bloomberg, The Guardian, and more.
The Breaker Pod with Ramin Beheshti: Why Gen-Z Isn’t Tuning Out Of the News; The Creator Economy and Why Will Lewis Will Make a Comeback
In the latest edition of The Breaker Pod, we sat down with Caliber co-founder and CEO Ramin Beheshti. In 2021, Beheshti teamed up with Sir Will Lewis and others to launch the Gen-Z-focused news startup The News Movement.
Over time, The News Movement evolved into Caliber, a social-first media business, and is paired with political outlet The Recount, pop-culture-focused Capsule, a branded-content arm called Caliber Collective, and creator-focused news app SaySo.
Beheshti was quick to kibosh the idea that Gen-Z isn’t interested in the news: “150 million people a month are consuming our content, and 70% of them are under 35,” arguing that it’s all about how you frame it for them.
He also told Breaker from Crevette, a West Village seafood favorite (cheers to the owners, Ed Szymanski and Patricia Howard, for having us down), that he believes younger audiences don't have the attachment to legacy news outlets that previous generations clung to.
“I think the U.S. landscape has kind of vilified traditional media,” referencing Donald Trump’s threats to the press. “Also, I don’t think traditional media has done enough to espouse the values of journalism… So why should [Gen-Z] trust it just because it’s The Wall Street Journal?”
Breaker couldn’t let Beheshti go without asking about his former business partner and ex-WaPo Publisher Will Lewis. Did he think Lewis would make a comeback?
“I think Will’s an incredibly smart person,” Beheshti said. “I hope he does [come back], because I think he’s still got a lot to offer.”
Catch more in this week's episode of The Breaker Pod. Make sure you check us out and subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your pods.