VIDEO: FT's deputy CEO Ben Hughes talks digital

Hughes points out that FT print advertisers are already comfortable with digital channels. "Where you have a niche, C-suite, top level audience, the advertisers will always follow," he says, adding that both corporate and luxury clients have been surprisingly willing to promote themselves across online channels.

Digital has also helped evolve the relationship between advertiser and media owner, Hughes says. "These days, what we like to do is to act like a marketing partner and consequently the dialogue is much more intense."

Hughes adds that the rapid technological change and the unpredictable future direction of digital means that now is a great time for the print industry. "I haven't been working in the industry at a far more exciting and interesting time than we are in at this moment," he says.

And in the week when the New York Times unveiled its online paywall, Hughes argues that while such a strategy may work for a specialist print title such as the FT , it is not necessarily good for all publications. "It's an awful lot easier to have a paywall if you have some kind of niche content...if you are offering general news, I think it's quite difficult to ask people to pay for that, and I think a few of our colleagues who are going through that particular decision at the moment are finding that it is turning out to be quite difficult."