How much is the FT worth, and who would buy it?

Ken Doctor writes for Nieman Journalism Lab about the prospects for a sale of the Financial Times to a new owner.

Doctor writes, “Let’s get back to our opening question, the relative value of the FT compared to business news startups. One big difference, of course, is revenue: The FT brings in more than £700 million (or $1.1 billion) a year, many times what Business Insider or Quartz can so far muster. The FT is a mature business measuring itself on profit and then revenue growth, while both Business Insider and Quartz both still pursue audience growth and then revenue growth as early principle goals. The FT’s tough paywall limits overall traffic, but is optimized for reader revenue.

“That means that in overall, U.S. multiplatform unique visitors, it comes in at number 38 in the Business News category, according to comScore, showing a 9 percent year-over-year increase. (The full chart is at the bottom of this column.) Business Insider, optimized for social and search referrals, managed a 52 percent growth rate over the same period, and ranks second in the category to the leader, Yahoo Finance. Quartz (not shown in the chart) ranks 23rd, with 5.7 million unique visitors, up 119 percent year-over-year.

“Globally, the FT ranks 61st, down 27 percent year-over-year. Business Insider again ranks second — showing how it has extended its reach well beyond the U.S. in itssix years since launch. Quartz ranks 64th in this subcategory, with 2.9 million desktop unique visitors, up 53 percent year-over-year. Bloomberg, Dow Jones, Forbes, and others all rank higher, both globally and in U.S. unique audience. All except Dow Jones, whose freemium pay system offers a fair amount of free content, don’t impede traffic with paywalls. (Note: comScore’s global tally only counts desktop visitors at this point.)”