The Financial Times has introduced a new “North Star” goal for its business which is designed to help grow audience revenue beyond its core journalism offerings and across its broader portfolio of products and services.
Its new “global paying audience” metric (GPA) reflects subscribers to the FT’s core digital product, but also factors in paying customers for its live events, subscribers to publications in its FT Specialist division, and print newspaper circulation. The company said it currently stands at a global paying audience of 2.6 million and expects to reach three million by 2028.
The FT’s original “North Star” goal was to reach one million paying subscribers, which it achieved in 2019. But in 2022, management decided its next iteration should have a wider scope to reflect its efforts to diversify and expand the ways it generates revenue directly from audiences.