The Atlantic Hits the Seas With New Cruise Ship Partnership

The Atlantic is giving new meaning to the word sponsorship.
The 168-year-old magazine announced a first-of-its-kind, three-year partnership with the luxury cruise line Seabourn on Monday, which will bring its writers, editorial programming, and subscription access aboard Seabourn voyages starting this fall. The company declined to offer further financial specifics of the deal.
The partnership spans advertising, sponsorship, and subscription enablement, according to Alice McKown, publisher and chief revenue officer of The Atlantic. It will culminate in fall 2028 with a full 12-day route takeover from Montreal to Boston, the city where The Atlantic was founded in 1857.
“We realized we could do more than just an advertising relationship,” McKown said. “We thought of it as a joint business opportunity for both of us. The passengers win because they get new experiences, a subscription, access to our writers. And it is new for our writers too—it allows them to bring their stories to life in a different way.”
The partnership is rooted in a thesis McKown has been developing since joining the company four years ago, which is that the affluence—not just influence—of its readers could open up budgets from luxury advertisers.
The Seabourn deal adds an international and travel-focused dimension to that playbook, one that fits squarely into this evolving commercial identity. Travel and luxury have emerged as two of its strongest advertising categories heading into Q2, which is on pace to be the company’s best second quarter in at least four years, up 30% year over year, per McKown.
As part of the deal, passengers aboard routes that feature Atlantic programming will receive complimentary digital access while onboard, plus a three-month subscription after disembarking. The Atlantic is also curating the libraries aboard each ship, stocking them with recent issues and books by its writers, both current and historical.
The events programming will be overseen by Evan Smith, the former founder and CEO of the Texas Tribune who built that outlet’s festival into a nationally recognized event. Smith now leads The Atlantic’s events operation.
Programming this year will feature fireside chats. The slate will then expand in its second two years, with the flagship 2028 voyage timed to the 40th anniversary of Seabourn and marketed as 12 Days with The Atlantic. The scope of the programming will resemble that of The Atlantic Festival, spanning culture, literature, technology, and business, and will be informed, in part, by whatever is animating The Atlantic’s journalism at the time.
The partnership arrives as The Atlantic has been leaning hard into live events as a growth vehicle.
Last year, events made up 25% of the company’s commercial revenue, anchored by The Atlantic Festival, which moved to New York last fall and generated 36% more revenue than the prior year, McKown said at the time.
The company produces roughly 25 events annually, and in 2025 launched The Atlantic Across America, a 50-state tour that has so far drawn more than 7,500 attendees across five events, with two more scheduled for April.
“We want to go to [audiences],” McKown said. “In the age of AI and the internet, just having your brand show up in person is so valuable and builds affinity and strengthens that relationship.”
The partnership is also backstopped by a company that has been on a remarkable run.
The Atlantic now counts 1.46 million total subscribers as of the second half of 2025, having added 300,000 net new subscriptions over the prior year. This 27% year-over-year gain has outpaced all but one of the 184 titles that filed audited figures with the Alliance for Audited Media, according to the publisher. The Atlantic also added more than 50 newsroom positions last year, bringing its editorial headcount above 200.
The company has been building its subscription base through a series of creative distribution moves, including a college subscription program that has enrolled more than 75 universities, and a program offering free digital access to every public high school in America. The Seabourn deal adds another channel, one where the potential subscriber base is self-selecting and well-matched.
“We did do math on subscription projections,” McKown said, “and we saw that there was considerable upside.”