So farewell then, FTD
Is this curtains, or see you on the world wide web?
TRUE to form, the Financial Times Deutschland (FTD) will not go quietly. On December 7th the daily newspaper launched in 2000 is due to print its last edition, celebrating its biggest scoops, outlining the stories it would have loved to write, and inviting its star columnists to forecast the future. Memorabilia, including a sofa in salmon-pink FTD livery, are being auctioned; the proceeds will go to Reporters Without Borders, an NGO that defends press freedom.
In its short life the paper shook up German journalism with fearless, well-informed reporting—and pushed its big rivals, Handelsblatt and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), to shape up. But it failed to pinch market share and is said to have accumulated losses of €250m ($327m). Gruner + Jahr, a German publisher, which had started the FTD as a joint venture with the Financial Times (part-owner of The Economist), took full control in 2008 and last month said it would shut it down.
This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “So farewell then, FTD”
From the December 8th 2012 edition
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