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Competitors may have missed opportunity to charge for online news, says FT.com's MD

Posted: 27/10/08 By: Judith Townend

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UK news websites that 'have hung up their hats completely on advertising and given up the right to charge for their content' will suffer in coming months if online advertising drops, as it has in the US, the managing director of FT.com has warned.

In an interview with Journalism.co.uk, in which he also announced the arrival of the new Long Room page on the Alphaville blog, Rob Grimshaw said FT.com will continue to carve out its own path online (short audio clip below):

The site will not be signed up to monthly web traffic audits by the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCes), added Grimshaw. It will also keep its subscription-based access model and be selective in its audience online, he said.

The FT model, which gives users varying levels of registration and subscription, 'allows us to have our cake and eat it', Grimshaw explained.

"We think it's philosophically right," he said. "We've produced some hugely valuable content and we know for a fact that our users are prepared to pay for it."

"As we look into 2009, if the advertising market is more different we have the option of pushing our subscription and content business," he said.

"It's about using the flexibility of the access model and the business model overall," he added.

The site's competitors have 'very few options' he said. "They're tied to the advertising market – if it shrinks or stops, heaven forbid, they're going to contract with it."

Grimshaw said that although the site has been signed up for ABCe audits in the past, it would not engage in the monthly reports, in which other main broadsheets participate.

"We're trying not to get involved in a chest beating competition about numbers. The FT proposition is about quality not quantity," he said.

"The end point of that volume game is not a particularly attractive one and I don't see there being lots and lots of winners from that," he said.

Grimshaw is not just concerned with high standard content on the site - the users also need to be high calibre, he said (short audio clip below):

"It's about the quality of the content out there and the quality of what we get through the door," he said.

Presently, there's little problem moderating comments and the site attracts 'intelligent' users, Grimshaw said.

Though the site attracted 7.1 million unique users in March, according to an ABCe audit, its focus is on the 500,000 to a million users who are very senior, Grimshaw added.

The new Long Room site will be invitation-only, after completing a brief form. The FT is not afraid to be snobby online then?

"Snobby is not a word I would use personally, but it is high-level and it is intellectually charged to some extent," replied Grimshaw.

The FT 'assumes intelligence but not necessarily expertise' from its audience, something which is 'crucial to our [FT.com's] business model'.

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