Financial Times Cover Price Reaches £1.50

Business broadsheet the Financial Times is to increase its cover price to £1.50 – a second rise since June last year.

The FT now costs 20p more than it did in the second half of 2007, making it 70p more expensive than the Guardian, the Independent and the Daily Telegraph, and more than double the price of the Times.

The weekend edition of the FT has also gone up, by the same amount, to £2, matching the cost of the UK’s most expensive paper, the Sunday Times.

In June, the FT‘s cover price rose from £1 to £1.30, the paper’s first price hike for five years (see Financial Times To Raise Price).

This has failed to have a negative effect on the newspaper’s circulation, as in the latter half of 2007 the title continued to be the only Quality daily to record gains in its ABC figure (see ABC National Newspaper Round-Up: November 2007).

In November, the FT sold 142,108 copies in the UK and Ireland, up from 141,794 the previous month.

In April last year, the paper underwent a redesign aimed at making it more accessible and modern, adding more colour and a new masthead to its well-known salmon pink pages (see Redesign And Marketing Push To Modernise Financial Times).

Financial Times: 020 7873 3000 www.ft.com