The Financial Times announced this morning that the new charges are part of a redesign of FT.com, which will make the site simpler and faster to navigate.
The latest news and analysis on the site will remain free, but Pearson has introduced a two-tier subscription model for the website.
Users will have to pay £75 for the full editorial offering, including the full Lex column and popular columnists such as Peter Martin and Martin Wolf, and the FT.com news archive offering five years of FT news and features; Power Search -- fast, intelligent information retrieval; FT surveys and in-depth reports on countries, industries, markets and trends; and Industry Insight -- briefings on a choice of industries, including news by email and other features.
A £200-a-year premium service will incorporate all content available for £75, as well as two new professional standard research and monitoring tools: Global Database of Companies -- in-depth information and financial data on 18,000 listed companies across 55 countries; and Global Press Monitor and Archive -- fast access to 12m articles from more than 500 of the world’s top media sources.
Claire Payne, commercial director for FT.com, said: "Our business model has always been based on introducing a subscriptions element when the time was right. FT.com has a strong and diverse set of revenue streams, led by advertising, syndication and e-commerce. These will continue to be the strongest source of revenue for us in the next 12 months, with subscriptions expected to account for no more than 10% of the overall revenue figure."
FT.com is the latest in a string of newspapers to establish charges for its online content. The Wall Street Journal has always done so, and the Times, the Daily Telegraph and the Irish Times have all introduced charges for web content.
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