Financial Times and Apple – Still No Agreement on Subscriptions
By 
It looks like as of June 30th, there may be no more Financial Times available in the App Store, if publishers can’t come to an agreement with Apple. The Financial Times is one of the publications that has not yet consented to the new rules put in place by Apple – namely, a 30% cut of subscription fees.
In addition to fees, the new rules also give Apple access to subscriber data, which is an important aspect of audience targeting and advertising deals.
Financial Times product management head Mary Beth Christie says, “We’re still in discussions with them. We’ll see where they go. But we are fixed on the idea of holding on to our consumer data.” Unfortunately, with many magazines and newspapers already agreeing to Apple’s terms, it’s unlikely they’re going to make an exception here.
During the last few weeks, many publishers have agreed to the new rules and come to an agreement with Apple. Among them: Hearst, Conde Nast, and The Telegraph. These publishers are the first to have enabled their applications to work with the rules.
In 2010, the iPad contributed a tenth of the FT’s new subscriptions (subscriptions which can then be read on multiple platforms). If they don’t come to an agreement, FT could possibly stand to lose quite a bit of money, but that may not be enough of a motivator to cause them to agree to Apple’s terms. As June 30th approaches, we may see some last minute rushed negotiations, but if not, readers of the Financial Times will have to stick to non-digital copies.
