The Financial Times has launched free newsletter FT Alphaville on Substack in an effort to engage younger readers.
FT Alphaville is a markets and finance blog written by Bryce Elder and a team, and the weekly newsletter is set to include commentary, Alphaville’s latest blogs, data visualisation, research, previews of upcoming Alphaville events and a selection of charts.
Sarah Ebner, Financial Times’ director of editorial growth and engagement, said research has shown that Alphaville “strongly resonates” with younger readers, and launching its content on Substack is an effort to “reach more of them by launching on a platform where we know they already are”.
“We are also sure there are many existing Substack readers who will enjoy this new newsletter and look forward to them discovering and engaging with it,” she added.
“Alphaville is already free on FT.com so it should work well to also share the team’s brilliant journalism on Substack. It’s really a way of joining a successful existing product to an ecosystem that a lot of readers use to discover new content.”
The Alphaville newsletter will be sent every Friday from 21 November.
“The newsletter is for smart, open-minded readers who are curious about markets, economics, and the geeky mechanics of finance, even if they don’t work in those fields,” said Alphaville editor Robin Wigglesworth.
“FT Alphaville is a pretty weird, unique place, and we hope the newsletter will also resonate on Substack.”
The Financial Times sits alongside the likes of Reach titles, the Daily Mail and Piers Morgan in launching a Substack-powered newsletter.
Reach launched a series of topic-based free Substack newsletters to broaden its audience in June. It has 450 newsletters in total across its portfolio produced by titles including the Mirror, Manchester Evening News, and dozens of regional newsbrands. The Daily Mail launched free daily Substack-powered newsletter The Spotlight in May, and Piers Morgan also launched on Substack in the same month.
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