Financial Times Named World’s Top Newspaper

And while the Times of India did not score in the list of the world’s best newspapers, the Audit Bureau of Circulations has confirmed its 2.4 million daily sales makes it the world’s largest circulation broadsheet English language newspaper.

The Swiss survey by Internationale Medienhilfe queried 1,000 executives, politicians, professors, journalists and advertising personnel in 50 countries to compile its top 10 list. For the New York Times to have taken such a fall – from 21.3% in 2003 to 8.1% in the latest survey -- is a direct result of the editorial scandals that haunted the newspapers during the past two years, the Zurich based company said.

In order the best newspapers were the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Le Monde, Neue Zuercher Zeitung, New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Asahi Shimbun, El Pais, and Corriere della Sera.

And while the Times of India may not have been chosen for its editorial excellence in the Swiss survey, that newspaper has achieved its own remarkable statistic of capturing a full 30% of all English newspaper readers in India. Oh, how newspapers in other countries would give their right arm for that kind of penetration!

At the FT, for instance, its global circulation – some two-thirds coming from outside the UK – is about 427,000.

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The FT accolade comes after a difficult period in which the pink paper has been bleeding red since 2003. There has been some editorial cutting – for instance its sports section was banished -- to get to the point where its losses for the first half of 2005 were down to “just” £2 million. Not great, but certainly better than the £7 million loss for the same period in 2004 and the £32 million loss in 2003. It is hoping that for all of 2005 it will make breakeven.

This month, with many of its business readers on vacation and therefore advertising down, the FT is downsizing to just one section to save publishing costs.

With the Wall Street Journal European and Asian editions turning compact in October, there were questions whether the FT might also downsize. Management says it will not go to tabloid, but it does not rule out a switch to the Berliner size, a hybrid between broadsheet and compact.

But management does have one more possible worry. Just as the financial numbers are beginning to look good come reports that a new business newspaper may hit the streets of London in the autumn, aimed directly at the FT, and be given away for free. The question, of course, is whether there is enough financial advertising to support such a free financial newspaper.

Some good news for the FT is that its German FT Deutschland saw circulation increase 6% to 101,000 in a market still suffering from years of decreased advertising and lower circulations.

Germany is Europe’s largest newspaper market with a 27.4 million total circulation. It has 359 newspapers—22 daily -- giving it the fifth biggest circulation in the world. But the newspaper climate has been horrible since the year 2000, with advertising and circulation seriously affected. In the first three months of this year, for instance, total circulation declined 3.3% according to the German Association of Newspaper Proprietors. Advertising revenue since the year 2000 has dropped by about one-third.

German newspapers have particularly suffered from the young flocking to the Internet, leaving print readership elderly – about 80-85% of those aged over 40 regularly read a newspaper while that figure drops to 64% for those aged between 20-29.

The newspaper industry has been successful in stopping any free daily newspapers taking hold, and some have started their own tabloids targeted at the young at a very low kiosk price, but they really don’t seem to be doing very well. There are rumors that both Metro and 20 Minutes are making deals to enter the market with established German publishers.

Metro International, meanwhile, has announced it made a $2.2 million operating profit in the first half of 2005, aided by a $16 million profit for selling 49% of Metro Boston to the New York Times Company so the Times could converge it with its Boston Globe newspaper that has experienced serious circulation and advertising declines and seriously needs to wean back the young reader.

Metro says global circulation is now 7 million, up 35% from a year earlier, and some 17 million people daily read the papers. It publishes daily editions in 81 cities in 18 countries (17 languages) and it is profitable in eight countries.

It recently signed a franchise agreement with Mempo, a St., Petersburg company, giving it access to the Russian market, the largest population in Europe and one of the continent’s fastest growing advertising markets.

FT Editor Resigns Over “Strategic Differences” – November 4, 2005

Andrew Gowers, editor of the Financial Times, has abruptly resigned from the newspaper over “strategic differences” with Pearson, owner of the newspaper.

The fact that he was not offered another job “upstairs” indicates the differences between he and top management at Pearson, the FT’s owner, were substantial, but neither side has divulged any details.

The FT has been criticized lately for concentrating more on being an international newspaper (which the Pearson management supports) and not paying enough attention on its own backyard – the financial City of London – coverage that Gowers wanted to strengthen for the UK edition. Of its 439,000 global circulation, just 142,000 newspapers are sold in the UK and Ireland. The European edition accounts for about the same number, while the US is not far behind with 119,000. Just 36,000 are sold in Asia.

The FT has lost money for the past three years because of the big decline in financial and technology advertising that has hit most financial newspapers around the world. But the FT’s advertising revenue is up about 6% this year – mostly on the back of luxury goods advertising – and the newspaper is expected to break even for the year.

FT Ditches Its UK August Single Section After One Week - August 10, 2005

All FT editions had been combining its Companies and Markets section into the main section during August as a cost savings measure because advertising and circulation are normally down in the prime vacation month. But the UK edition has suddenly switched back to two sections after just one week.

The company hints that news and advertising are robust in the UK resulting in the normal two-section newspaper. But UK media observers believe the more likely reason is that UK subscribers complained they were being short-changed.

The FT has in previous years gone to a single-section in the summer in some of its international editions, but this was the first year it tried it in the UK. And probably the last.