Private Eye (in the UK) is thriving as a paper publication without very much of an online presence. Audited circulation of nearly a quarter of a million (https://www.abc.org.uk/product/3379).
Private Eye would have more money and more eyeballs if it had a sufficient online presence but the simple answer is Ian Hislop doesn't want that and I would imagine he would say "We're doing just fine, having not invested a lot in to online presence for Private Eye" and he'd be right.
What works for Private Eye might not work for the New York Times.
Are the publications putting everything online making loads of money by doing so?
Because they sure don't act like it.
They pay like shit, and they keep writing articles about "the ugly, ongoing collapse of U.S. journalism"
But when they report on something, it's gone from the public view in a few weeks as the only place you could find it would be your own archive, assuming it goes back that far (and you wish to dedicate the space in your house), or a major library of which there are only a handful in the country that would maintain an indefinite archive.
Something more impactful than a report on another suspiciously "bungled" contract by a councillor would be to be able to see the other articles they've done on that person over the decades. Even if there was, say, a year-long delay in putting them in the archive, there's a difference between "Eyes passim" (doubly irritating as there's also no thematic index and hundreds of back issues you'd need to look in) and seeing the older reports in front of you.