Some interesting explanations on last week’s news of a single-copy price hike at the FT (and WSJ) from FT CEO John Ridding in today’s Independent: “In the new media age, the internet has put a lot of attention on knowledge of your audience and, in print, the best way of doing that is to build a strong subscriber relationship. Retail is great but you don’t know who they are.”
Indie: “The website, FT.com, has 90,000 subscribers paying a minimum of £99-a-year ($196), a fact which no doubt helped convince Ridding that a £1.30 ($2.58) price for the paper was sustainable.”
Remarkably, Ridding also reckons he can charge more because of growing public interest in business news thanks to shows like The Apprentice — remarkable because most Apprentice viewers are likely to be business virgins, for whom stumping up £1.30 a day is a bigger ask. Ridding: “But we do believe in the value of FT content, we do believe people value it and we do believe they will be ready to pay for it.”