Fiona Ramsay, Media Week, 08 January 2008, 11:30am

FT to beef up video in website relaunch

LONDON - The Financial Times is to relaunch its website in the summer, adding more blogs and international video content to the site.

FT’s chief executive John Ridding said the relaunch was being planned for the middle of the year as one of several projects in the works.

The newspaper is also planning a refresh of its FT Weekend supplement. A spokesman said: “We are looking at changing the content and structure. We are currently tying down the timings, but that too is expected in the first half of the year.”

The two moves will follow a period of renewed digital activity at the FT. Late last year Reuters and the FT agreed a deal under which Reuters will add video to the content it currently supplies to FT.com. In November, the FT appointed Richard Edgar as head of video for FT.com.

In the past 12 months, FT.com’s monthly unique users have grown by more than 70% to 6.5 million. Page views have risen by 50% to 43 million, while online revenues have risen by 40% in the same period.
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