Andrew Gowers, ,
“We are a much more rounded paper with our coverage extending to not only business news but also the political economy, the political risks and the political events.”
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Published: Feb 21, 2004 12:00 AM | 4 min read
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“We are a much more rounded paper with our coverage extending to not only business news but also the political economy, the political risks and the political events.”Joining the Financial Times (FT), London, on the foreign desk, Andrew Gowers steadily grew within the organisation and in 2001 was appointed as Editor of the business daily’s global print and online operations. He had earlier served as the Editor of the German language business newspaper FT Deutschland, a joint venture between FT and Gruner & Jahr, leading business publishers in Germany. Gowers was recently in India for the CII Partnership Summit.
Addressing the audience during a session on ‘Engaging the World: Media Leaders Perspective’, Gowers said that the Western perception of India as a nation of snake charmers has long been replaced with a more realistic one. He said that developments in the past few years have seen India increase its global interaction and thereby project an image of a dynamic nation. He added that the country through its several joint ventures and acquisitions has offered an image of an emerging and competitive economy. Gowers went on to add that a combination of clarity in foreign and economic policies and objective reporting from the local media would play a major role in sustaining the current optimism about India. Shubha Kumble managed to catch up with him for a quick round of Q&A. Excerpts:
Q. Has the reader profile of FT changed over the years? Not quite. We continue to attract top decision makers, chairmen of corporate houses, top people in all areas of business and commerce.
Q. Where do most of your readers come from? We have seen significant changes in not only numbers, but also the spread of our paper. We now have a circulation worldwide of around 460,000, which is made up of around 140,000 from Continental Europe, 140,000 from the UK, another 140,000 from the US and the rest from Asia.
Q. How has FT grown in the past few years? Our growth outside the UK is phenomenal. We have acquired over the past few years a growing readership outside the UK, which is mainly in the US. This we didn’t have before. Twenty to twenty-five years ago we printed the paper for the first time outside the UK in Frankfurt and we moved from a circulation of a few thousands from outside the UK to a figure where almost two-thirds of our circulation came from it. Here again, most of our readers are top-level decision makers in the business sector.
Q. What has led to the growth of FT outside the UK? The change is that people are becoming more integrated and the world economy has grown relatively closer. So people have recognized the need to know that their national borders are consistently becoming less important. People have also realized that if they are, for instance, in the IT business they need to know what is happening not only in the Silicon Valley but also elsewhere in Asia. So, the focus on distance has gone down and I think this is the major contributor.
Q. What are your views on the coverage of business news in India? I think the coverage is very much in sync with international standards. I think the Business Standard is a brilliant paper. We have a long-standing relationship with them. I particularly admire the comments section of the paper. The paper as a whole maintains a very high standard of reporting. (Extracted with permission from PITCH, the Advertising, Marketing and Media Review)
Q. How does FT differentiate itself from competition? The main competition we face comes from the business sections of the UK national newspapers. Along with this we compete with the Wall Street Journal around the world. We are different from our competitors in many ways. We are a much more rounded paper with our coverage extending to not only business news but also the political economy, the political risks and the political events. The Financial Times in its comments is not a paper that is a right wing American firm. Instead, we have a more pragmatic European multilateral approach. We are definitely progressive, pro-market, but don’t shout about it so stridently.
Q. Where do most of your readers come from? We have seen significant changes in not only numbers, but also the spread of our paper. We now have a circulation worldwide of around 460,000, which is made up of around 140,000 from Continental Europe, 140,000 from the UK, another 140,000 from the US and the rest from Asia.
Q. How has FT grown in the past few years? Our growth outside the UK is phenomenal. We have acquired over the past few years a growing readership outside the UK, which is mainly in the US. This we didn’t have before. Twenty to twenty-five years ago we printed the paper for the first time outside the UK in Frankfurt and we moved from a circulation of a few thousands from outside the UK to a figure where almost two-thirds of our circulation came from it. Here again, most of our readers are top-level decision makers in the business sector.
Q. What has led to the growth of FT outside the UK? The change is that people are becoming more integrated and the world economy has grown relatively closer. So people have recognized the need to know that their national borders are consistently becoming less important. People have also realized that if they are, for instance, in the IT business they need to know what is happening not only in the Silicon Valley but also elsewhere in Asia. So, the focus on distance has gone down and I think this is the major contributor.
Q. What are your views on the coverage of business news in India? I think the coverage is very much in sync with international standards. I think the Business Standard is a brilliant paper. We have a long-standing relationship with them. I particularly admire the comments section of the paper. The paper as a whole maintains a very high standard of reporting. (Extracted with permission from PITCH, the Advertising, Marketing and Media Review)
Q. How does FT differentiate itself from competition? The main competition we face comes from the business sections of the UK national newspapers. Along with this we compete with the Wall Street Journal around the world. We are different from our competitors in many ways. We are a much more rounded paper with our coverage extending to not only business news but also the political economy, the political risks and the political events. The Financial Times in its comments is not a paper that is a right wing American firm. Instead, we have a more pragmatic European multilateral approach. We are definitely progressive, pro-market, but don’t shout about it so stridently.
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