The FT Likes Subscriptions. Data? Not So Fast.

Another year, another AMO Summit finished—and buckets of insight waiting to be written up. As a little flavor of that, you can find below the first of three stories we’ve got from my interview with Matt Fottrell, the FT’s chief reader revenue officer and president in the U.S.

Matt told me what the Financial Times is looking for in a possible acquisition and why it’s being “really cautious” about buying data businesses.

This year’s summit also featured a first for us: a print magazine with exclusive, original content. We’re publishing one of those online today—a feature going deep into the question of what fandom could mean for publishers and whether it’s worth pursuing.

We got into the debate with Industry Dive co-founder Sean Griffey, Brew Media CEO Robert Dippell, Economist co-managing director Nada Arnot and Axios business editor Dan Primack. It’s worth your time.

And to everyone who helped make it another great summit: Thank you.

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Audience
Should Publishers Optimize For Fandom? (And If So… How?)

“I think 10 years ago, Morning Brew and theSkimm had real fans,” Griffey said. “I'm not sure, as they got bigger and they did more, that they kept that fandom. I think Morning Brew is closer to a legacy media company than they are to a fandom company now.”

Read full story here.

M&A
The FT’s B2B Acquisition Playbook: Charge More, Be Wary of Data

Endpoints News had about $1 million in subscription revenue when the FT found it. Three years after the acquisition, it’s generating roughly £10 million a year from corporate subscriptions alone—and the FT says part of the playbook was simply giving the team confidence to charge bigger customers a lot more.

Read full story here.

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