Bloomberg buys BusinessWeek

BusinessWeek

Bloomberg, the financial news and data giant, has agreed to purchase business industry publication BusinessWeek.

The magazine was initially placed on the market in July this year by its owner, New York-based public trading company McGraw-Hill, after falling ad revenue led to drastic losses in revenue.

Bloomberg, another New York-based company, was founded by the city's Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 1981 and now holds one-third of the financial software, news and data market, similar to Thomas Reuters. The company expects to take control of the magazine by the end of this year.

The acquisition includes both the BusinessWeek print publication and the BusinessWeek.com website, but the exact terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed.

Speaking of the deal, Bloomberg president, Daniel Doctoroff said: "BusinessWeek helps better serve our customers by reaching into the corporate suite and corridors of power in government, where news that affects markets and business is made by CEOs, CFOs, deal lawyers, bankers and government officials who typically are not terminal customers."

BusinessWeek has a circulation of around 921,000, but the volume of advertising pages sold by the publication has fallen sharply since the turn of the century, from a peak 6000 in 2000 to less than 1900 last, according to figures from the Publishers Information Bureau.

Bloomberg has been expanding its offerings for consumers in recent years, including investments in television and radio, a monthly print magazine and its website. Last year it hired Pearlstine, former managing editor of the Wall Street Journal and editor in chief of Time Inc. The company, owned by New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, still earns the majority of its revenue from the 300,000 subscribers to its computer terminals that provide financial news and data.

Doctoroff added, "We can marry that asset to the 2,200 journalists of Bloomberg News in 145 offices in 72 countries, and that's going to enable us to create a weekly that we're going to invest in and make a great magazine reflecting the strength of the entire staff of Bloomberg."

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