Upheaval in financial news

Steve Lohr of the New York Times writes Saturday that News Corp.’s office to buy Dow Jones & Co. for $5 billion plus Thomson’s overtures to Reuters Group Plc signal massive upheaval in the financial news business.

Lohr wrote, “Financial news and information, they say, has a growing worldwide audience, and that affluent community is a lucrative market for advertisers and subscription services. And the opportunity, they add, is multimedia, with financial news and data delivered over the Web, on television, in print and to specialized computer terminals on trading desks.

“‘This is all about exploiting these financial news, information and data sources globally as never before,’ said Harold Vogel, an independent media industry analyst. ‘And no matter who ends up owning these companies, that is the way of the future.’

“For both companies, the proposed mergers confront current problems. For Thomson, one of the most aggressive and innovative media companies but one with very little public profile, acquiring Reuters would greatly increase its competitive position against the current leader in the market, Bloomberg. Reuters would lift Thomson’s share of that market to 34 percent from 11 percent, compared with Bloomberg’s 33 percent, according to Inside Market Data, a research firm.

“Currently, Reuters is No. 2 in financial data, after Bloomberg, and Thomson Financial is No. 3. They are competitors, but they tend to cater to different customers, analysts said. Thomson customers tend to be institutional investors, while Reuters customers are more often brokers and bankers who sell securities.”

Read more here.