FT Magazine

Over the past year, FT Weekend Magazine has enjoyed a surge of new readers, strengthened its bottom line and earned wide acclaim – kicked off by winning Supplement of the Year at the 2023 Press Awards. Determined not to rest on its laurels, our team focused on continuing to improve the breadth of what we offer, the creativity of our pages and the reach of our journalism.

We continued to deliver widely read, high-impact investigations, ranging from revealing the misdeeds of financial titan Leon Black (The Black Tapes, Nov 25) to exposing the IDF’s “post-mortem sperm retrieval policies” (After Life, Oct 26). As with most of the magazine’s investigations, our cover story on the exploitative practices employed by Opus Dei for decades (Opus Dei Diaries, Mar 16) resulted in months of follow-up news-breaks in the daily FT.

Because impact comes in many forms, we also sought to consistently publish intellectually provocative and highly shareable “talkers”. Blockbuster pieces such as Cory Doctorow’s essay on “enshittification” (Feb 10) broke traffic and engagement records. Literariness is another highly valuable quality that intelligent readers are happy to pay for. We continued to raise the bar by publishing pieces by Rachel Cusk, Susan Orlean, Ann Patchett and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Our magazine must offer depth and seriousness, but it also has to find ways to swing and entertain. To do so, we added new single-topic issues such as the Archives Issue (Dec 23), the Shakespeare Issue (Jun 1) and the Games Issue (Jul 27). These were not only replete with fascinating narrative and service journalism, but they were presented in visually stunning formats both in print and online. Readers loved them.

We know that is the case because, in addition to higher traffic, an extensive reader survey found that 94% of readers rate the magazine as “excellent” and 93% read it because it is “intellectually stimulating”. The average time spent with the magazine surged to 66 minutes per week, up from 51 minutes in 2018 – and the highest of any section in the entire FT.

The magazine’s performance this year has been widely acknowledged by our peers, receiving accolades from the Wincott Awards, Fortnum & Mason’s Food Awards, the Society of Publishers in Asia and many more.Twenty percent of the top ten most-trafficked stories on FT.com last year came from the magazine. Most importantly, our business is stronger than ever, with higher print ad pages (+60%). The magazine’s improved quality and breadth allowed us to sign a six-figure sponsorship deal in October 2023 that took the publication global. A second global issue is planned for January 2025.

FT Weekend Magazine’s success stems from a relentless focus on great storytelling. Over the past few years, mid-tier, just-Ok pieces have been abolished. To earn their place in our readers’ busy lives, every story has to keep the pages turning with narrative, character, detail, humour, revelation and substance.

Every FT magazine story has to bite. This year they have.