The New York Times Is in Exclusive Talks to Buy Letterboxd for About $330 Million

The New York Times Company has entered exclusive negotiations to acquire Letterboxd, the film-tracking social network, for about $330 million, the New York Times reported on 5 November 2026. The talks are exclusive, which means rival bidders have been set aside, but they are not a signed deal. The Times Company declined to comment to its own newspaper, and Variety reported that it had no comment. Letterboxd has not confirmed the discussions either.

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The Times, citing two people familiar with the talks, put Letterboxd's projected 2026 EBITDA at about $15 million. EBITDA means earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, and the $330 million price works out to roughly 22 times that figure. Variety put the multiple at more than 20 times. Neither company has confirmed the price, the multiple or the talks.

That is a large number for a website whose core product is free. It makes more sense when you look at what the Times Company has spent the past decade buying, and at what a young film audience is worth to a business that now sells subscriptions and advertising.

What $330 million buys

The Times Company's acquisition history has a pattern. Each deal bought an audience with a routine.

• Wordle cost a low seven-figure sum and came with a daily puzzle that people share.
• Wirecutter cost slightly more than $30 million and brought product-review traffic that feeds affiliate revenue.
• The Athletic cost $550 million and added a sports newsroom with a subscription base.
• Letterboxd, at about $330 million, would add a film audience of about 30 million.

At that price Letterboxd would be the second-largest of the four, behind only The Athletic and well ahead of Wirecutter. The comparison has limits: The Athletic came with a newsroom, while Letterboxd comes with a product and a community. The price is still the clearest signal of how the Times values a niche audience with a habit attached.

Twenty-two times EBITDA is a growth multiple. A buyer paying that much is betting that profit rises. The reporting describes where Letterboxd's profit is expected to be in 2026. It does not describe how the Times intends to multiply it. Advertising technology and subscriptions are the two routes to more revenue named in the coverage so far.

Exclusivity also says something about the bidding. For the Times to reach this stage, other suitors had to be set aside. A24 dropped out when the price rose, according to the Times, which suggests competitive pressure pushed the figure up. How many other bidders reached the same stage is not known.

A 15-year-old network with a young audience

Matthew Buchanan and Karl von Randow founded Letterboxd in New Zealand in 2011. Fifteen years later it has about 30 million users, according to Variety. TechCrunch reported 28 million in April 2026 and said more than half of them are under 35. The two counts differ by source and date, which is what happens when a private company does not publish quarterly metrics.

Ownership is concentrated. Canadian holding company Tiny bought a 60% stake in 2023 at a valuation of $50 million to $60 million, Variety reported. Buchanan and von Randow hold the remaining 40%. If the $330 million price holds, Tiny's stake would be worth about $198 million and the founders' combined stake about $132 million. That is arithmetic on a reported number, not a term sheet, and it ignores debt, cash and any liquidation preferences from the 2023 deal, none of which have been reported.

The age profile is the part a newspaper cannot easily build. A film-logging app whose users are mostly under 35 gives the Times a young audience without launching a youth product. Whether those users will pay for news is a separate question, and one the deal does not answer.

The archive may be the harder asset to replace. A user who has spent years logging films, writing reviews and building lists leaves behind a record that does not transfer to another service, and that record is why the network can hold an audience a newer app would have to buy. Letterboxd has not published how many of its 30 million users are active, which leaves the strength of the habit unmeasured.

What Letterboxd sells

The core product is free. Users log films, rate them, keep watchlists and follow other people's viewing. Letterboxd sells two paid tiers, Pro at $19 a year and Patron at $49 a year, Variety reported. The company also runs a film-rental service in 23 countries; it launched last year.

Subscriptions are the known revenue line. Letterboxd has not published how many people pay for Pro or Patron, and it has not published revenue. The $15 million EBITDA figure is a projection for 2026, so it rests on a forecast rather than an audited result. Anyone trying to judge the multiple is working with one projected profit number and no revenue denominator.

Because the tiers cost $19 and $49 a year, the size of the paying base matters more than the size of the free audience. A large free audience with a small paying base would produce a very different business from the reverse. The reporting does not settle which one Letterboxd has. IndieWire covered the talks without adding a subscriber figure either.

Why a newspaper company wants it

The Times Company has a stated target of 15 million subscribers by the end of 2027, TheWrap reported. The plan has relied on buying audiences as well as building them. The Athletic is the largest example, and Letterboxd would be the second.

Film helps the Times in two ways. Editorially, a service that records what people watch, what they add to watchlists and what they abandon holds a large, current dataset about taste in cinema. Commercially, the reported plan has Letterboxd using the Times' advertising technology, which suggests the paper sees a way to sell ads against film intent as well as against news reading.

Neither company has described a subscription bundle. A plausible one would attach Letterboxd Pro or Patron to a Times subscription, and the reported plan leaves the paid tiers untouched. That is a possibility raised by the shape of the deal, not a term anyone has announced.

The independence question

For Letterboxd users, the promise that matters is independence. Part of the service's appeal is that it belongs to neither a studio nor a retailer with an incentive to push its own titles. That is why the identity of the owner has been part of the story since the first reports.

A24, the independent studio, promised to keep Letterboxd independent but dropped out when the price rose, according to the Times. Sony Pictures Entertainment, Netflix, Skydance, TPG and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian were reported at various points as interested parties. The list says something about what buyers see in the asset: a direct line to film taste, not a content library.

The Times is a publisher, which avoids the studio conflict, since it has no studio slate to promote. Other conflicts remain. The paper reviews films, runs a culture desk and sells advertising to studios, and owning a large consumer service for film logging would put those activities in the same company as the community's data. How the Times would separate editorial judgment from commercial interest is a fair question. Neither company has addressed it.

What could change for users

The reported plan keeps Buchanan and von Randow in charge, reporting to a Times executive, with Letterboxd run as a standalone platform. Those are the reported intentions. No contract terms have been published, and a standalone platform can still change its prices, its advertising load or its data policy.

Three things would be visible quickly:

• The price of Pro and Patron, which are $19 and $49 a year.
• The volume of advertising, especially ads sold with Times technology.
• Whether the founders stay beyond a transition period.

None of that appears in the coverage so far. What has been reported is a structure and a price. Nobody has described a product plan, because there has not been a close.

What to watch

The first test is whether the deal closes. Exclusive negotiations give the Times Company a period to agree terms without a rival bidder, and they can end without a deal. A signed agreement would be the first confirmation of the price. A collapse would return Letterboxd to a market that has already shown it has suitors.

Regulation is the second check. No outlet has reported the deal as facing a specific regulatory hurdle, and nothing in the coverage suggests a long antitrust review is expected. That is an absence of reporting, not a clearance.

Third, watch the product. The first price change, ad format or data policy after a close would tell users more about the new owner than any statement at signing. The founders' tenure is the other signal. If they leave earlier than the reported plan suggests, the community will notice.

We will know more when someone signs something, or when the exclusivity period runs out. Until then the price is a report and the deal is a possibility that neither company has discussed in public.

Cover image: the New York Times Tower, by Eden, Janine and Jim, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.