Categories: OLD Media Moves

Thomson planning wire service to compete with Bloomberg, Reuters

Financial Times reporter Aline van Duyn reports that Thomson Financial is planning a wire news service that would compete with Bloomberg News and Reuters.

Van Duyn wrote, “Thomson Financial, part of Thomson, the electronic publishing business, is building a global network on the back of AFX, the European news service it bought for an estimated $20m last year.

“Since then Thomson has invested heavily in editorial staff, and employs about 500 reporters, around double the number a year ago.

“Recent bureaus have opened in Lisbon, Vienna, Budapest and Warsaw, and more are planned.”‘We always felt that providing news was critical,’ said Sharon Rowlands, president and chief executive of Thomson Financial. She declined to disclose the size of the investment.

“‘Three or four years ago it would have cost us $250m and taken five years to develop. Developments in technology and the easy availability of information like corporate earnings releases have allowed us to do it for much less,’ she said in an interview with the FT.”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.