Financial Times - History

History

The FT was launched as the London Financial Guide on 9 January 1888, renaming itself the Financial Times on 13 February the same year. Describing itself as the friend of "The Honest Financier and the Respectable Broker", it was a four-page journal. The readership was the financial community of the City of London. The Financial Times established itself as the sober but reliable "stockbroker's Bible" or "parish magazine of the City", its only rival being the slightly older and more daring Financial News. In 1893, the FT turned light salmon pink to distinguish it from the similarly named Financial News. From initial rivalry, the two papers were merged by Brendan Bracken in 1945 to form a single six-page newspaper. The Financial Times brought a higher circulation while the Financial News provided editorial talent. Lex column was also introduced from Financial News.

Over the years, the newspaper grew in size, readership and breadth of coverage. It established correspondents in cities around the world, reflecting early moves in the world economy towards globalisation. Pearson bought the paper in 1957.

As cross-border trade and capital flows increased during the 1970s, the FT began international expansion, facilitated by developments in technology and the growing acceptance of English as the language of business. On 1 January 1979, the first FT (Continental Europe's edition) was printed outside the UK, in Frankfurt. Since then, with increased international coverage, the FT has become a global newspaper, printed in 22 locations with five international editions to serve the UK, continental Europe, the U.S., Asia and the Middle East.

The European edition is distributed in continental Europe and Africa. It is printed Monday to Saturday at five centres across Europe. Thanks to correspondents reporting from all the centres of Europe, the FT is regarded as the premier news source involving the European Union, the Euro, and European corporate affairs.

In 1994 FT launched luxury lifestyle magazine How To Spend It. In 2009 The Financial Times launched How To Spend It magazine’s standalone website.

On 13 May 1995 the Financial Times group made its first foray into the online world with the launch of FT.com. This provided a high summary of news from around the globe and was supplemented in February 1996 with the launch of stock prices followed in spring 1996 by the second generation site. The site was funded by advertising and contributed to the online advertising market in the UK in the late 1990s. Between 1997 and 2000 the site underwent several revamps and changes of strategy as the FT Group and Pearson reacted to changes online. FT introduced subscription services in 2002. FT.com is one of the few UK news sites successfully operating on subscriptions. The Financial Times' digital subscribers surpassed its print customers for the first time in 2012.

In 1997, the FT launched the U.S. edition, printed in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Atlanta, Orlando and Washington, D.C., although the newspaper was first printed outside New York City in 1985. In April 2009, the FT's U.S. circulation was 143,473. In September 1998, the FT became the first UK-based newspaper to sell more copies internationally than within the UK. Worldwide circulation stands at 421,059 with global readership estimated at over 1.4 million in more than 140 countries.

In 2000, the Financial Times started publishing a German language edition, Financial Times Deutschland, with news and editorial team based in Hamburg. Its initial circulation in 2003 was 90,000. Originally a joint venture with German publishing firm Gruner + Jahr, FT eventually sold its 50% stake to its German partner in January 2008.

The editor of the FT is Lionel Barber, who took over from Andrew Gowers in autumn 2005. Since 2005, the FT has sponsored the annual Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award. In October 2006, the FT launched FT Alphaville, an Internet-based daily news and commentary service for financial professionals.

On 23 April 2007, the FT relaunched, with a new typeface, new labelling, but no reduction in paper size. This redesign has been billed as the “most dramatic revamp in a generation” and includes more panels in the news pages, more first page feature content in the “Companies and Markets” section, and sports content that is more squeezed to allow an extra foreign news page.

Changes include the reintroduction, above the leaders, of the FT's 1888 motto, “Without fear and without favour” and more signposts to FT.com. To coincide with the redesign, Pearson PLC announced an advertising campaign centred on the tag-line “We Live in Financial Times”, created by the agency DDB London. The FT redesign was handled by and was the first major project for design firm Shake-up Media and young American designer Ryan Bowman.

In 2008 Financial Times launched a Middle East edition. The newspaper has been printed in Dubai since 2003. An Asian edition was launched as FT, printed in Dubai, whilst the Financial Times has also been printed in Tokyo and Hong Kong since 1990 and 1996 respectively. The Financial Times now has UK, Continental Europe, Asia, US and the Middle East editions.

Since 2010 FT is available on Bloomberg Terminal. Financial Times said: “This agreement opens up another large and hugely significant channel to the FT.”

In January 2012 it was announced that the FT had acquired Assanka, the developer of its mobile offerings. Smart phones and tablets now drives 12% of subscriptions and 19% of traffic to FT.com.