Categories: OLD Media Moves

FT expects subscriptions, newsstand revenue to surpass ad revenue

The Financial Times expects its print advertising revenues to be overtaken by subscription and content sales for the first time this year, reports Georgina Prodhan of Reuters.

Prodhan writes, “The FT, the only unit of British publishing group Pearson with significant exposure to advertising, has been at the forefront of making consumers pay for news on the Web, and now makes almost 30 percent of its revenues online.

“‘It’s obviously a rather challenging time for print advertising so these engines of digital subscriptions and content are essential and valuable,’ Chief Executive John Ridding said on Monday.

“‘We think this year our content revenues should be pretty much the equivalent, maybe even exceed, print advertising revenues for the first time ever,’ he told the London leg of the Reuters Global Media Summit.

“The Financial Times, with its specialist business news and elite readership, is one of the few news providers to have succeeded in developing a successful online business behind a paywall. Digital subscriptions are now its main growth driver.”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.