InPublishing: Anatomy of a successful print partnership

The Financial Times is very good at planning and, according to Janet White, managing director (print), strategic planning always involved both the newspaper and its magazines, which includes the FT Weekend magazine and How to Spend It (HTSI). Print is a brand flagship.

“Our print subscriptions year on year are 10% up. Our print advertising continues to be really strong. Print makes a significant contribution to the FT as a business,” she says.

All the signs are that that will continue to be the case: “The average age of our newspaper readership is actually very similar to FT.com. People expect me to say it’s 68 or whatever, but it’s just 45.

“A good example of our commitment to print is our increasing the frequency of HTSI, from 39 issues last year to 42 this year.”

With the success of the FT’s digital offering, I ask, how does she explain the enduring appeal of print?

“For readers, it’s the fact that it’s curated content, that they know that the editor has chosen what goes on the front page. We have readers that just find reading digitally overwhelming. Print presents a finite amount of content; readers know where to find the columns and journalists they want to read. For advertisers, it’s the ability to deploy high impact display advertising to an audience of high-net-worth individuals.”

Paradoxically, the success of the FT’s replica digital edition, which is very popular in areas of the world where it’s uneconomical to print, proves the enduring appeal of the print layout and curated approach.

Janet sees her role as protecting “the future of these products that are an integral part of the FT, and to develop them further.”

She therefore needed a printer who was in it for the long term and who had the capability to further enhance the quality of the magazines and offer new creative executions.

At DistriPress in 2022, she met with Steven Renders, general manager of Roularta Printing.

Janet recalls: “I brought along a copy of HTSI magazine and asked Steven what suggestions he had for enhancing the quality of the magazine and what scope there was for introducing new creative executions.”

Conversations ensued which culminated, said Steven, in doing a test run, “to show how it would look like from our presses. This is a magazine where quality has to stand out. Advertisers are spending significant amounts of money to have their brands presented in the best possible light.”

The test run was a success and led, in 2023, to the FT awarding the printing of the EMEA-destined copies of four magazines (HTSI, Art of Fashion, Business Education and FT Wealth) to Roularta Printing.

Given the success of the test run and Roularta Printing’s obvious printing pedigree, and the fact that the copies were headed for EMEA, moving the printing to Belgium was a logical and fairly risk-free decision.

Printing copies for UK distribution

It is what came next that was the main reason for me meeting with Janet and Steven at the FT’s Bracken House HQ, in the shadow of St Paul’s.

In late 2025, Janet awarded the print contract for the UK-destined copies of those four magazines, as well as for the FT Weekend magazine (a weekly UK-only title distributed with the FT Weekend).

The four original magazines had fairly long lead times, so printing and shipping back to the UK was straightforward, but for a weekly title with very tight production schedules, it was potentially a different story.

As Janet says, “the magazine goes to press on a Wednesday afternoon for insertion into the FT weekend product. We have to have it back in the early hours of Thursday morning.”

“Not hitting the distribution deadlines was the big risk. My logistics team did lots of scenario planning and testing with Roularta. Once we were satisfied, we switched over.”

“So far,” says Steven, “in six months, we have had 100% success with hitting distribution deadlines.”

The message that Steven is keen to get over to other UK publishers is that Roularta Printing can not only handle monthly titles, whether destined for the UK or elsewhere but also time-sensitive weeklies for UK distribution.

So, three years into the relationship as a whole, and six months into Roularta printing their weekly magazine, what, I asked Janet, from her perspective, makes a successful print partnership?

There are six things she looks for in a printer:

1. They produce quality print.

“First and foremost is quality. HTSI is a very beautiful magazine with a lot of very high-end advertising in it, so quality is absolutely key.

“Hand in hand with this is the ability to offer print innovation. To date, we’ve done two significant creative executions with Roularta for our advertisers that we’ve not been able to do before. For Cartier, we did a gate fold off the back of the magazine, and, for Tiffany, we used a foiling technique that was striking.

“The other thing that impressed about Roularta was the fact that they obviously invest in their print site, and also in their staff.

“It’s very important to me that staff are treated well. I can see that they’re valued and have careers at Roularta.”

“For Cartier, we did a gate fold off the back of the magazine.”

2. They deliver on time.

Especially for weekly titles, hitting delivery deadlines is non-negotiable.

For FT Weekend magazine, “we actually have it delivered earlier than we did from our UK printer, which is amazing. It’s phenomenal.”

As Steven points out, there is a 12-hour window from receiving the print files from the FT to returning the finished copies back to the UK.

Roularta was hitting those deadlines from the get-go, but have since managed to buy some extra time by winning ALP (approved loading place) status from the Belgian customs authorities allowing all the import documentation to be completed from their offices ahead of time, meaning they could shave an extra two hours off delivery times.

“And,” adds Steven, “we are able to cope with the unexpected. We have two plate making machines and two other presses we can use to do the identical product. We also have the luxury of having a huge paper stock – we have about 7,000 tons of paper in our factory. This all means that we always have a solution if something goes wrong.”

3. They’re in it for the long term.

Janet looks for “evidence of longevity; it’s so very important to me to know that I am working with a partner that is going to be around, not only in the short term, but in the longer term.”

“The FT does strategic planning for the future, three years, five years, looking at where we’re going to be, what the product’s going to look like. I know that Roularta is doing the same.”

Roularta Printing is part of Roularta Media Group, Belgium’s largest publisher with over 70 media brands.

As Steven says, “the fact that we are part of a major publishing group provides assurance for the long term. That’s a very important element for a lot of our prospects and customers.

“Printing is a core activity of our group. It’s a decision we’ve made for the next five, 10, 15 years, to print our magazines in our own factories. That shows our customers that we can be a long-term partner for them.”

4. They are committed to achieving carbon neutrality.

“It’s very important to the FT that we work with partners who are actively reducing their carbon footprint and working towards carbon neutrality as we are, and Roularta’s credentials are impressive,” said Janet.

“We are very proud of our record on sustainability,” added Steven: “we have an ongoing programme of continuous monitoring and improvement. Just last month, we opened our new solar park at our site in Roeselare. This project, representing an investment of over €1.1m, includes nearly 3,000 solar panels and will lead to a reduction of well over 400 tons of CO2 emissions per year.”

5. They see the relationship as a partnership.

“Publishers get the best results from their printers when both parties see it as a partnership,” says Janet.

“Our Paris luxury advertising team thought it would be a great idea to take some of their clients to Roeselare for a visit because they were so impressed with the operation and Steven and his team were happy to accommodate them.”

There are lots of other examples of a partnership approach, such as the quarterly optimisation meetings where both parties look for areas of improvement, the proactive approach of Roularta’s press teams that notify the FT if they notice anything untoward with the print job and the willingness of the Roularta distribution team to phase delivery so as to optimise truck loads. This alone, says Janet, saves them the cost of one truck per week.

6. They are professional and respectful.

“You’ve got to have very exacting standards to produce a product like this and I’m never afraid to push those standards and I always get very positive feedback from Roularta,” says Janet.

Often the test of a good supplier is not how they react when things go right but how they react when things go wrong.

“We did have one issue in the early days. It was a minor thing, but it was the way that Roularta dealt with it in such a professional manner, that impressed me.”

“The team at Roularta are knowledgeable, professional and respectful.”

“For Tiffany, we used a foiling technique that was striking.”

Soon after the FT first appointed Roularta Printing in 2023, Janet said: “The choice of Roularta Printing as a strategic partner is based on various considerations, including a strong emphasis on sustainability, continuous investments in cutting-edge technologies, and the unparalleled quality standards maintained by Roularta Printing. Additionally, their long-term vision plays a crucial role in a rapidly consolidating market.”

It’s clear to see that in the three years since she said that, the partnership is as strong as ever.

Have you got a message for other UK publishers, I ask Steven: “If you are looking for a reliable, long term, quality printer, for your UK-bound copies, or for those destined for further afield, then put us to the test, just like the FT has done.”