I stumbled across this headline on Wednesday morning:

FT Bosses Launch PR Offensive For Paid-Content Model

I thought: “Launch? Don’t you mean ‘Launched’?” The Financial Times brass has been arguing for months that the only newspapers that will survive the tough times they have been through lately are those that stop giving away the news online, and can do it without sacrificing the advertising money they earn on the Web.

Here’s an excerpt from the blog that produced that headline, courtesy of digitalarmm:

Editor Lionel Barber tells Channel 4 in an interview that there is now “an inexorable momentum behind charging for content” and he urges other national papers only considering introducing paywalls — essentially all of them — to act now (See the video link inside the digtalarmm blog post)

Here’s more:

Meanwhile Barber’s boss, FT CEO John Ridding, was busy telling Guardian.co.uk’s resident press blogger Roy Greenslade that the FT now makes one fifth of its profits from its website, compared to 17 percent in 2007.

None of this is too surprising, but here’s the third prong in the strategy: the equivalent of a house ad supporting the FT’s doctrine on paid content, not published as a real ad, but as the thrust of a commentary in the FT’s Lex column:

The challenge is to restore growth. Those titles most likely to benefit from any eventual rebound will be the top brands or specialist publications that held the line on advertising prices and can credibly charge for content. Weaker publications, having ceded pricing power in their desperation to win business, are unlikely to get it back.

It’s a good thing that the Lex team feels this way because it saves the FT from having to take out ad space in its own paper. That’s synergy!

It looks like The Guardian was the first to report that the Financial Times would cut up to 60 jobs in its editorial library and managing editor’s office, as well as its advertising sales, finance, IT, conferences and marketing departments. The Guardian might have overplayed things a bit, as we hear no one has decided on final numbers and that plenty of cuts could come through leaving some jobs unfilled and various other humane means.

If the FT shed 60 non-newsroom employees, that would amount to a little under 4 percent of its total staff (1,600 positions, with about 550 in editorial). As FT chief John Ridding says in the memo, it’s streamlining, not fallout from the financial crisis. In that respect, as Ridding has told us, world economic pain has been good to the FT so far. Still, it probably won’t hurt to batten down the hatches before the advertising market starts taking on water.

Here’s the memo:

Dear All,

As I have said in our staff presentations and business updates we are continuously looking to streamline our organisation, to make it as efficient as possible and to adapt it to the rapidly changing media industry.

This has involved creating a global management structure, integrating print and online, and bringing our acquisitions more closely into the FT.

We are now assessing further steps in this process, including the creation of a single magazine production operation, increasing the integration of our personal finance operations, further integrating our advertising sales teams, and transferring a number of financial functions to our operation in Manila. As a result, about 60 existing positions may be affected. We will obviously try to manage this as carefully and sensitively as possible, and we will now be launching a period of consultation about the proposed changes. Anyone who might be affected will be contacted by their manager today.

As you will have seen from the recent Pearson trading statement (attached), we are continuing to perform well despite the challenging market conditions. Our circulation is strong, a tribute to the exceptional coverage by our editorial team, while the efforts and expertise of our commercial team continues to drive revenues. Sustained success, however, means we must continue to adapt to market and audience demands and to look for efficiencies. The measures we are considering are designed to achieve that.

I’ll keep you informed about progress.

All the best

John

When the markets go south and most people are losing, it’s safe to say that there are some others who are winning, or at least spotting opportunities. You could say that about the Financial Times and its chief executive, John Ridding, who is finding a business angle on what they say about the editor’s decision-making process: “If it bleeds, it leads.”The London-based FT is building up a pretty good head of steam, particularly in the United States, as the effects of the financial crisis ooze into yet more corners of Wall Street and Main Street (sick of the “streets” cliche yet?). Here’s evidence, some of which Ridding gave me when we had breakfast at Michael’s last week:

• Newsstand sales rose 30 percent in the United States in September, and about 20 percent in Europe and Asia. That’s compared to August 2008, i.e., it’s a “sequential” gain rather than year-over-year growth. In the United Kingdom, Ridding said, “We basically couldn’t print enough copies and retailers were running out.”
• The number of registered users of FT.com rose to 750,000 now, compared with 30,000 a year ago. Some of this growth of course, came from pulling back the curtain last November. But Ridding said a couple hundred thousand of those showed up in the past few months, as the mortgage and housing crisis in the United States deepened and then metastasized into full-blown world-market-crisis mode. (Here’s how registration and subscription works at FT.com)
• During one week, Ridding noted, page views hit 25 million, more than double the normal amount. Ridding’s conclusion: “What [the crisis] is doing for our readership and audience is pretty remarkable. I think it really underlines this idea that at a time of turmoil, people really do need trusted guides, and are prepared to pay.” (The Journal, if anyone’s wondering, logged 21.7 million visitors at its website, up 110 percent from last year. It’s hard to tell whether the figure is comparable.)
• During the week of Sept. 22, online page views were up 300 percent, and monthly unique visitors were up 250 percent compared with last year. The United States is pitching in so far, producing the largest number of unique users.

That’s all very good, but reader interest tends to spike during news events, and ebb afterward. Ridding suggested ways to retain the newcomers:Stick to paid subscriptions. Ridding noted that many readers have stuck with the paper through its newsstand sale price increases, and plenty of folks are willing to pay for not only the FT, but access to the Lex column too.

• Do more video. People apparently like it as it’s resulting in more than a million views a month, Ridding said.
• Get the paper on more formats. Press hard for online subscriptions as much as print ones. Get it on the Amazon Kindle electronic book reader. Use RSS and other tools — whatever it takes to get it out there.
• Push online use as much as print. Ridding was proud to say that the FT’s dependence on print advertising has fallen to 42 percent, an important point to keep in mind as print newspaper advertising dries up. And don’t get worried about the idea that online use will “cannibalize” print sales, Ridding said. “The idea of online cannibalizing print is not just wrong, it’s the opposite. It’s proving to be a very effective marketing tool for the newspaper.”

None of this should indicate that the FT has figured out something that the rest of the world has missed, he noted. “No one has necessarily nailed the business model in media, but we feel that we’ve got a pretty strong vision and operation.”

(Photo: Reuters)