New York Times Sends E-Mail Offering 50% Discount in Error

New York Times Co. said it erroneously sent an e-mail to subscribers and potential customers offering a 50 percent discount, after earlier describing the note as having been sent by someone else.

The message “should have been sent to a very small number of subscribers, but instead was sent to a vast distribution list made up of people who had previously provided their e-mail address to the New York Times,” Eileen Murphy, a company spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.

Earlier today, Times Co. said on its Twitter page that the e-mail wasn’t from the company. The e-mail is addressed to “Home Delivery Subscriber” and includes a phone number and an offer code. The note, meant for subscribers of the company’s namesake newspaper that had recently requested to cancel home delivery, offers 50 percent off for 16 weeks.

Times Co. won’t extend the offer to all customers that received the e-mail, Murphy said.

Times Co. fell 1.2 percent to $7.67 at the close in New York. The shares have dropped 22 percent this year.