From the Nieman Journalism Lab, Feb. 27:
The FT is a leader in crossing over from print digital subscribers now make up 70 percent of its paying audience, a number that keeps growing.
Even as the Financial Times announces excellent bottom-line numbers, the heat it’s feeling from the diverse and growing competition in business news is palpable.
The FT may be 127 years old and roundly and rightfully respected for its journalism. But it doesn’t even break into the top 25 business news websites, as counted by comScore (see chart below). In the U.S. — which became its largest market a few years ago, surpassing the U.K. — FT.com ranks #44, with 804,000 uniques. Topping the comScore list are three big free business news sites — Yahoo Finance, Business Insider, and Forbes — and re-energized, free offerings like the new Bloomberg.com intensify the battle for readers.
Why does the FT rank so low? Understandably, it’s favored revenue and profit over audience growth. While its paywall is metered, it’s a tough one to sample. I’ve seen up to eight monthly articles offered — with registration — and then repeated log-in requests as browsers run across an FT article on Twitter or elsewhere.
Consequently, the FT is opening up — adopting a $1 (or €1 or £1) one-month trial strategy, one. (Ironically, a similar model has been tested by numerous Press+ customers, after it — now bought and merged with Piano Media — modeled its own meter on the FT’s.) Having well transitioned many of its print readers to digital and harvested a good number of new ones — 20 percent of all new FT signups now happen on smartphones, a remarkable number for a news organization — it feels the need to reach a new, wider market of readers and would-be subscribers.
“Where do we go next?” is the question that the FT is now answering anew. As one three-year plan is completes, a new plan moves forward. “You can’t stand still,” FT CEO John Ridding told me in an interview this week. “We are rethinking key elements again.” It’s a good time for the FT to renew itself. Ridding says that the FT has tripled its profits year over year — a significant achievement for a newspaper industry in today’s frosty legacy publishing climate.
“There’s been a lot of internal debate about champagne and martinis,” Ridding said. That’s as in narrowly fluted champagne glasses and wide-brimmed martini. Simply put, the FT’s paywall marketing caught too few potential customers. Widen the top of the glass — or the overused metaphorical top of the funnel of reader acquisition — and more potential subscribers can be snared....MORE
