Bloomberg Media CEO Justin Smith sent out the following message to the staff on Wednesday:
Dear Colleagues,
Two years ago we set out to build the leading global business and financial media company in service of Bloomberg LP. There have been many successes across Media this year, but our revenue performance has been outstanding. Through the end of May, overall Media revenue has grown 9% versus last year. This continued trend reflects the strength of our talent and products, and is especially impressive given ongoing challenges in the news media landscape.
In the first five months of this year, our advertising sales increased 11% as we’ve focused on our core differentiators – global reach, multiple platforms, and high-quality journalism. Every region and nearly every platform has realized growth over last year, driven by our expanding global footprint and our disciplined focus on the business and finance audience. TV has grown 15%, driven by a remarkable 40% growth in U.S. TV revenue. Digital is up 15%, driven by video and custom ad sales. Radio has grown 30% as we’ve expanded distribution and launched new stations. Events sponsorship revenue has nearly tripled over last year.
There are many reasons for this growth: new dynamic products across every platform, a talented sales and marketing team, and a concerted effort to build stronger direct relationships with our advertising clients. More advertisers are buying Bloomberg on more than one platform due to last year’s transformation of our sales team into a multi-platform selling organization. We’ve more than quadrupled our revenue from our custom advertising studio, Kinection, including campaigns from UBS and Zurich. And new products – such as our Middle East expansion, original digital video series, and expanded verticals like Bloomberg Pursuits – are helping us win in emerging advertising segments such as luxury (+41%) and economic development (+51%).
Bloomberg Content Service, our global licensing and distribution business, has also continued to grow, with an 8% increase in revenue year-to-date compared to 2015. BCS has grown sales in every revenue stream – new TV distribution arrangements, new branded partnerships, and increased content licensing in new segments and geographies around the world. In May alone, BCS signed 21 deals – 9 of which came from new clients. We also just announced the expansion of our Spanish-language news licensing service to include over 80 translated stories per day, more than tripling the current volume.
Even while we continue to support Bloomberg LP and its core businesses, Media’s revenue growth so far in 2016 has been nothing short of exceptional given market conditions.
Thank you for this strong performance and your continued hard work. We are incredibly proud of all you have accomplished. As always, I look forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas.
