Mayor supported BusinessWeek deal

Shira Ovide and Russell Adams of The Wall Street Journal have a second story Thursday about the renamed Bloomberg BusinessWeek magazine, noting that New York mayor Michael Bloomberg pushed his company to acquire the glossy.

Ovide and Adams write, “Bloomberg executives explored buying BusinessWeek in late 2008, more than six months before McGraw-Hill acknowledged the magazine was for sale. Bloomberg passed early on, in part because executives were nervous about fallout from the global financial crisis. Things began to change around the time of Mr. Bloomberg’s phone call to Mr. Winkler.

“Bloomberg L.P.’s own subscription sales began to steady. Norman Pearlstine, Bloomberg’s chief content officer, said he began to see how BusinessWeek could continue the news operation’s so-far halting efforts to make itself more of a consumer-news brand.

“And then there was the encouragement of the mayor. Daniel Doctoroff, the president of Bloomberg L.P. since 2008 and a former top aide to the mayor, said Mr. Bloomberg was consulted about the acquisition.

“‘He was an enthusiastic supporter,’ Mr. Doctoroff said. ‘His name’s on it, his name’s on the company, and he cares that what we do is of real quality. If there was one question he asked, it was, ‘Can you make it great?”‘

Read more here.