Monday, 3 September 2018

The FT has 930,000 paying subscribers

"The Financial Times believes it will complete its “march to a million” journey to 1 million paid subscribers next year after a positive response to a change in its access model.
The FT revealed it now has 930,000 paid subscribers, with 740,000 of those (79.6%) being digital subscribers and the remaining 190,000 having a print-only deal. Digital subscription is up 11% year-on-year and overall subscription by 7%.
The realisation of the longstanding 1 million target would be a significant vindication of a paywall strategy that began with its first digital subscriptions in 2002 and continued in 2007 with the introduction of the FT’s first metered-paywall. Its chief executive, John Ridding, recently recalled how that decision met with a “pretty hostile” response from digital futurists, who warned the paper that “the internet wants to be free”.
In reality, that 16-year quest behind the paywall has been conducted without a definitive map. The FT has tweaked and re-tweaked its navigational dials as evolving technology has given it new insights into reader behaviour and the paths it must travel to find new audiences."
Source:  The Drum, 30th August 2018

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