Financial Times creates new circulation measurement, collaborates with BurrellesLuce

Posted by Savita Sauvin on August 23, 2010 at 12:39 PM

The Financial Times has created a print and digital circulation metric that calculates the number of people who paid for accessing content on its paid website each day. The FT announced it believes it is the first media company to produce such circulation data, and said the statistics will be released quarterly in addition to ABC statistics on print circulation, MediaGuardian reported. The first set of results revealed for the period 31 May to 4 July shows that the average global circulation was 563,026, including newspaper sales, active FT.com and e-reader subscriptions.

The financial daily has also entered into a licensing deal with U.S media monitoring service provider BurrellesLuce to "increase its coverage and change the way FT articles are accessed," Editor & Publisher reported.

This agreement supports the newspaper's direct licensing strategy to provide its license holders with unlimited access to its website content and third party technology platforms as well. Having launched the press clipping service recently, the newspaper extends its digital license rights to press-clippings and images in the newspaper. Registered users of the news website can access up to 10 articles per month at no cost. BurrellesLuce will deliver links to FT articles hosted on FT.com, including online content and PDFs of press clippings of all regional print editions from the newspaper beginning October, according to E&P.

"We have created a system that increases coverage and reduces costs for low frequency users. We recognize the value of the services provided by BurrellesLuce and at the same time want to ensure price transparency and consistency for customers of the Financial Times," Caspar de Bono, Managing Director of B2B at the Financial Times told Media News International. The financial newspaper has 38 authorised channel partners and 19 media monitoring agencies.

"Traditional single-channel audience measures only tell part of the story of the FT's brand health," John Ridding, chief executive of the FT, told MediaGuardian."Our readers are increasingly platform neutral, consuming FT content in print and online, and our approach to measurement should reflect these new patterns and platforms."