Are paid subscriptions more recession-proof than advertising?

That’s my gut feeling. Here’s some data to back it up:

Among eight large metropolitan dailies surveyed in the top tier of the Index, six showed increases in subscriptions from September 2021 through August 2022. One showed only a small decrease and another showed a significant decrease. (Publishers have agreed to contribute their data to the Index with the provision that they are not identified by name.) Medium-sized and smaller publishers also saw an increase although not as great. Meanwhile, reader regularity, the frequency with which readers go online to view news, held steady at all three tiers.