Categories: OLD Media Moves

Online subscribers top 500,000 for FT

The Financial Times reported Friday a sharp increase in profits in 2014, driven by growth in subscription and digital revenues and a record high circulation.

The FT’s total circulation grew 10 percent year-on-year to nearly 720,000 across print and online. FT.com subscriptions grew 21 percent to almost 504,000, with digital now representing 70 percent of the FT’s total paying audience. Mobile is the fastest growing channel, driving almost half of total traffic.

“Behind the strong commercial performance, we enhanced our product offering with reader-focused innovations such as the new FT Weekend app, First FT and author alerts. Importantly our audience is not just growing – people are spending more time with the FT and consuming more content,” said FT Group CEO John Riding in a statement. “Overall engagement is up by double digits year on year.”

in 2014, the FT pioneered a new advertising currency based on “exposed time” and sold by cost per hour (CPH). Powered by technology partner Chartbeat, it is available to clients in addition to traditional impression metrics.

“How To Spend It,” the FT’s luxury lifestyle magazine, marked its 20th anniversary in 2014 and attracted record advertising revenues.

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.