Times right to go a'BlackBerrying

In the foyer of the Financial Times building on the approach to London's Southwark Bridge is displayed a copy of the first edition of the newspaper, printed in 1888 with the strap-line "The Friend of the Honest Financier and the Respectable Broker".

The Victorian founding fathers who set up the paper to capitalise on investment fever in the era of Cecil Rhodes' African adventurism were still five years away from having the brainwave of turning the pages pink.

Little could they foresee that, just over a century later, an editor of their paper would have the notion of sending daily editions to the world's business elite by way of electronic messages via personal hand-held devices named after the fruit of the humble briar.

That editor is Andrew Gowers, who is planning to make the Financial Times the first newspaper in the world to be delivered by BlackBerry. "There's great potential overlap between the sort of people who own BlackBerrys and those who read, or should read, the FT," he says.

"They are on the move; probably making decisions about reasonable amounts of money and need information wherever they are.

"So the next thing we are going to do is be available on BlackBerrys. We've got a form of FT.com that will be BlackBerry friendly and are having discussions with BlackBerry as to how that might develop."

Earlier this year, Gowers went to Canada to meet Jim Balsillie, chief executive of Research in Motion (RIM), the Toronto-based company behind BlackBerry.

"Most existing websites are too voluminous and clunky and don't look good on BlackBerry," Gowers says. "I said, 'What do we need to do to be more BlackBerry friendly?' We then produced a streamlined version of the site."

There are already 3.6 million owners of the distinctive black portable email/internet/phone devices in the world, with the figure expected to rise to 10 million by the end of next year.

Gowers joined the ranks just a couple of months ago but has become a devoted adherent to an object deemed by some to be so demanding on the attentions of its owners that it has been dubbed the CrackBerry.

The "stripped-down" version of the FT to be offered via BlackBerry will be a free service to business high-flyers, who will be able to bookmark the service and use it daily.

Gowers makes no apology for his unbridled enthusiasm for new technology, which is at the heart of a strategy that has seen him drive forward the online edition of the FT in combination with a global plan to spread the paper edition far and wide, printing in 23 countries.

It is a policy that has allowed critics and rivals to point at declining UK full-price sales and claim that the paper no longer adequately does what those Victorian founding fathers intended it to do: cover the London markets.

"We are thinking about the FT brand much more than the newspaper. How do we get it to more people, in different ways, whether online or in print or in BlackBerrys or in ways we haven't even thought about?" Gowers says.

"I have long thought that those who make a good fist of presenting themselves online will be those who enjoy long-term survival.

"The distribution costs are so much smaller than distribution costs in print. It's an attractive medium for us to promote as a global publication."

Gowers says the FT is "more integrated between print and online than any other hitherto print publication. We've had people from American newspapers coming here and going away impressed with the degree to which we have put together print and online resources."

Even so, FT.com (which has 80,000 subscribers) is "only at the beginning" of a journey, "peeking its head over the parapet at the moment", and the site will become "much more interactive, much more based on a series of communities", for technology experts, fund managers and other specialists.

"They have to be given a much more vital and vivid and dynamic online expression," he says, citing online polls, video galleries and audio content.

Another aspect of the FT's strategy appears to owe more to the tradition of the 1888 sheet for honest financiers and respectable brokers than to the era of the worldwide web. FTpm is a single sheet of A4 with stories and ads, delivered to 40,000 desks in the City every day at 4.30pm. It gives readers a news update and offers a tease of what will be available in the next morning's paper.

Asked if there is room for it to grow in size, Gowers says, "We are not trying to create a new newspaper here". But he then appears to contradict himself by adding, "I wouldn't rule out doing so either. If there were strong advertising demand, we would be interested in doing that."

Free FT on BlackBerry. FT online. Free afternoon FT on the desk. How is any of this directly going to improve UK sales of the paper, which are still the key benchmark of most British media commentators when assessing an editor's performance?

Critics noted with a certain relish that fully paid-for UK sales of the FT slipped below 100,000 in July. The newspaper points out that, unlike some newspapers that bulk up their sales with copies virtually dumped in airports and hotel receptions, FT discounts include copies bought by investment banks for home delivery to key staff so that they can arrive at work properly briefed.

The FT has a six-monthly average global sale of 428,849 (it had grown to more than 500,000 under previous editor Richard Lambert), with the US circulation somewhat static at 119,759, well short of the 200,000 which Gowers once suggested was achievable.

When Gowers, now 47, took up the editor's post in 2001 he dubbed himself an "FT Greybeard," emphasising his considerable intellect and a long career on a title which he joined in 1983. (He has covered wars and notably launched FT Deutschland against considerable odds in 2000.) He is also something of a modernist and a reformer, a fan of contemporary bands such as Snow Patrol and Super Furry Animals, attending the Isle of Wight festival this year and Glastonbury the summer before.

He was described by one interviewer as an "opinionated ... Henry VIII lookalike", an ironic comment given that the FT editor has faced calls for his own head amid claims the paper has lost its way.

Gowers has not shied from the criticisms, notably warning Andrew Neil to "stick to cheap political talk shows" after the former Sunday Times editor repeatedly attacked falling standards of accuracy in the FT.

He has remained combative and stuck doggedly to his strategy, but had his worst moments in the first half of 2003. The paper was making enormous losses amid recession, financial scandals and the Sars virus and Gowers remembers thinking: "What else is this bloody thing going to throw at us?" He clearly feels more confident in facing critics now that the FT is returning to profitability.

"The essential nub of the criticisms is that we've taken our eye off the ball in the UK because we've gone around the world. I don't think it's true and I'm determined to prove it's not true," he says.

To try to shore up the UK sales, Gowers has begun a "wave of tweaks" to the paper. The just-launched FT Money (a spin-off from the former FT Money & Business) in tabloid format with full colour is already "attracting strong advertising support".

From last Wednesday, the FT introduced a Digital Business section, a fortnightly offering that will cover "what technology can do for business ... and the world of gadgets".

Global Traveller is a new tabloid travel section, launched this month.

Most significant of the new developments though is the expansion of the famous Lex financial analysis column so that it will now cover the whole of the back of the book.

"For as long as anyone can remember, Lex has occupied this real estate on the back page," says Gowers, pointing to the column on the right of the back page which made its debut in the thirties.

"Lex is one of the most important calling cards. It's very popular in the States and has an increasing name in Asia and Europe. We now produce more Lex online because the world is going online."

Gowers has been mulling over this change since a breakfast meeting, days after he became editor, with the author and management guru Jack Welch.

Asked what suggestions he had for improving the paper, Welch said: "Just give me a whole page o' Lex."

- INDEPENDENT