The following email was sent out by Bloomberg Media CEO Justin Smith on Monday:
As we look to 2015 and the opportunities we can seize, we are making two organizational changes to build on the strength of our business development capabilities and digital products.
First, the Web, mobile and connected devices partnerships team, led by Brian Ernst, will join the Bloomberg Content Service team, reporting to Todd Swidler. Brian and his team have done an outstanding job driving strategic relationships with companies like Yahoo!, Roku and LinkedIn.
Digital traffic driven by business development deals has risen 38 percent year-over-year and revenue from the group has increased 32 percent. With this move, we’re recognizing that the market is shifting, and partners are looking to work with us across all platforms and properties.
By integrating with Todd’s broader team, we will make it easier for us to approach all partners with the full breadth of what Bloomberg has to offer and open up new business development opportunities.
In addition, branded partnerships in EMEA and Asia will be managed regionally by Adam Freeman and Parry Ravindranathan, in close coordination with the global Bloomberg Content Service team. This move reflects the important role our global partnerships play in extending our brand and content worldwide and will ensure those partners are linked tightly to the work we do with our Media divisions in those regions.
The second announcement is around continued integration of our digital properties. One of our highest priorities this year has been to accelerate digital video growth – and we’ve seen extraordinary success.
As you may know, under Paul Marcum’s leadership, the Digital Video team has grown monthly video streams to an all-time high of 72 million worldwide streams in September, a stunning 136 percent increase from last year. To make sure the team’s excellent work in video is fully integrated into our overall digital initiatives and new sites, Paul Marcum and the Digital Video team will embed with the Bloomberg Digital team, reporting to Paul Maya.
Paul Marcum will continue to lead our digital video efforts in this new structure. Continuing to improve our digital video offering – through the work of all teams – is absolutely essential to driving audience and revenue growth next year. The two Josh’s (Tyrangiel/Topolsky), Claudia Milne and Courtney Coupe are also working hard on a new approach to our original digital video programming, to align with our new sites.
Across the board, we’re staying flexible and evolving quickly to make sure we’re best organized for our clients and consumers. We have so, so much to be proud of this year, but we also have much more potential to realize.
Justin
