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Friday 29th September: Subs, events and advertising fuel FT revenue boost for 2022
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The Media Voices podcast is back this Monday! Make sure you’re subscribed on your favourite podcast app, or come to voices.media to listen in to the first episode of the Autumn season.
Media Makers Meet (Mx3) and Media Voices are collaborating on a new event focused on developments and opportunities in AI for publishers and media leaders. Join us in London on 7th December.
Today’s Media Roundup is brought to you by Mx3 AI. (Book this ad slot).
The Financial Times has always been an outlier in terms of newspapers. Straddling the line between business information service and newspaper, it’s too long for Dick and too short for Richard in a lot of ways. That makes taking any direct lessons from it is all but impossible — but as this write-up from Charlotte Tobitt makes clear, there are some lessons that other media businesses can learn from its success:
“Newly-published UK accounts for Financial Times Ltd on Companies House show operating profit up 179% to £13.4m and profit before interest and taxation up 547% to £11.7m. The accounts said this was “achieved through careful control of operating costs in the face of growing inflationary pressures”. Revenue was up 14% to £422.5m.”
Now look, cutting costs tends to be either a euphemism or an excuse to let people go. But in this case it appears that Nikkei (which owns the FT) has recognised that your talent is ultimately the cause of your success. So while staff costs have increased 15%, it’s in service of making sure that the FT is positioned to deal with and report on fluctuations in the wider market.
Wonderful. Wonderful, wonderful. We talk a lot about how one of the original sins of the internet age was publishers letting platforms have their content for free. At least, at the start of the AI age, we’re seeing some platforms like Medium push back against AI companies doing the same thing. Now, fingers crossed the final part of this statement from Medium comes true and writers do get fairly compensated.
From our community forum: We’re asking the question “Are sales people just money monkeys?” at the Grub Street Journal. The answer is clearly, 'NO!' but tell us why on the forum.
And speaking of - friend of Media Voices Damian Radcliffe has put together a practical guide to ensuring that media companies are using AI effectively. We’re no strangers to publishing this sort of thing, but Damian’s done a really good deep dive into how media companies can use AI tools for their benefit. His first point — about how to not just jump on the bandwagon — is especially pertinent at the moment.
I’m surprised the number is that low. You might remember this from a few weeks ago when the news that USA Today was seeking a TaySway reporter sent Peter into a tailspin. And look, you can argue that is is frivolous, and won’t actually be as useful as real local court reporting, for example. But honestly who among us wouldn’t want to have a beat this specific?
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