Confident of a digital model that will fund great journalism for years to come, the New York Times is looking for new ways to expand revenue. Circulation has been the news publisher's biggest source of income for the last two years, with 831 digital subscribers adding an extra $150 million a year ($82 million in the last six months) to the dollars received from sales of the print edition.

A 'risky' decision to introduce a paywall in 2011 has been vindicated and chief consumer officer Yasmin Namini - who is also a keen sea angler - is looking for “new fish to catch”.

On a visit for The Newspaper Works' Future Forum - her sixth to Australia on business and pleasure - she also had plans for bait-casting at Freshwater Cove. And she likened the “risk and innovation” in prospecting for barramundi and mangrove jack on the Kimberley Coast to that needed to catch new digital subscribers.

An early 2000s move into paywalls had been controversial, but then, so had the introduction of colour to front pages in 1997… and it is the same conservative loyalists who objected that the NYT is now tapping with a new Times Premier digital product.

These top-end subscribers are now paying an extra $10 - on top of the $35 they pay every four weeks for full digital access - for “behind the story” coverage, crosswords, topic books and events, extra access for family members and the ability to gift three-month subs to friends. Goal of the enhanced tier is to build a deeper relationship, Namini says.

A Times Insider component also includes the opportunity to quiz reporters and learn about stories and happenings to look out for. A favourite video spills on the two hours (and numerous staffers) needed to prep a brief Obama interview. “It's a more dynamic and immersive experience, and takes people from spectator to feeling they are a participant.”

The next-stage products are being fine-tuned, but retention stats are “really encouraging”. And a far cry from when the original paywall was introduced.

“People said we were crazy, delusional and dumb, and only in retrospect is it possible to see the risks we took were smart and necessary,” Namini says.

But even if the landscapes continue to change, some are unchanging: “I believe in great journalism, the kind we publish at NYT and you all do,” she told delegates. “It's more important than ever and worth paying for.”

The last five years have seen circulation revenue rise, first through increases in cover prices, and then the paywall - which currently allows ten free stories a month - and subscription models. Since 2012, it has been the largest revenue source - a “watershed” partly driven by declining advertising - and since January, has accounted for 54 per cent.

“Basically, we asked digital readers to pay for our journalism, just as just as print readers had for more than a century and a half,” she says.

Encouragingly, they have found a “large and growing” number of people willing to do so. Even with the digital growth slowing, the last quarter's 32,000 new subscribers was a 19 per cent increase.

Subscribers pay $15, $25 or $35 every four weeks for different levels of access, amounting to between $195-$455 a year. “Advertising remains very important but growing the number of subscription relationships and revenue are a key to reinventing our future business model,” Namini says. “If we can continue to expand the base of digital subscribers, we think we shall have a foundation for a new business model, one that can deliver sustainable profits and continue to fund our great journalism for many years to come.”

A lot of research, assessment of demand levels, and “optimising profitability for the overall business” preceded pricing decisions. “What we had to do was consider the impact on our print pricing, and minimise the amount of cannibalisation,” she says.

The original meter model of 20 free articles a month before subscription is required - to maintain high traffic levels - has now been reduced to ten, but Namini says, “you have to make assumptions and build a flexible model which enables changes. Print subscribers - who “already pay premium prices” - were given all-digital access free, and this has helped slow a decline. Four fifths of the “more than a million” print subscribers have linked to the website and apps.

Now the publisher is looking at new opportunities, especially from the more-than-half of its digital subscribers using mobiles. It is also looking at those at the extremes of its demand curve.

In addition to the heavy-duty Times Premier users, those who value the content but won't pay $15 for it are being targetted, an opportunity, Namini says, to capture a new audience.

Two new products are already up: NYT Now - an $8 per four weeks curated news app has a mostly under-35 audience, most of whom have not subscribed before - and the $6 NYT Opinion app delivers access to all opinion content. Of NYT Now, Namini says “you know you're reaching a younger demographic when Buzzfeed has you at number six on its list of apps that will help you in your 20s”. Paradoxically, it is placed between two drinking apps.

A new free NYT Cooking app is in beta, to launch this northern autumn and will draw on feature content such as the Times' database of 15,000 recipes, adding tools and community. “We want to build up as large and engaged an audience as possible before we start charging for it,” she says. The first new product tied to a feature section, it will bring together chefs, users, friends and family.

Namini says the rollout of the new apps is very different to first paywall model, for which there was a large target audience: “These have to reach new audiences and stand out on their own,” she says. “So far, we're pretty pleased with reaction, but it's still early.

“The success of our subscription strategy and those of others, shows people will pay for comment, and readers' engagement can be turned into growing revenues and content.”

Peter Coleman