Bloomberg Media CEO Justin Smith sent out the following to the staff:
Dear Colleagues,
We have lots of good work to celebrate over the past month as well as lots of learnings. This note will continue to be a way to celebrate where we are seeing m
omentum and also call out what we need to improve.
On the web, I’m pleased to share that we’ve just hit another record traffic month. We remain #1 in global business video with 16.5 million unique viewers and 165 million streams in June, according to comScore. We’ve seen exceptional video growth in the past year: 349 percent in unique viewers and 311 percent in streams. In U.S. multi-platform traffic, Bloomberg.com grew 102 percent year-over-year with 23.6 million unique visitors in June. We hold the #4 position in comScore’s business and finance category, remaining ahead of WSJ.com, CNNMoney.com, CNBC.com and others.
But, there’s still work to be done. To continue succeeding digitally, we need to constantly iterate and evolve our products. As part of our ongoing evolution, we’re introducing some changes to our homepage this week that have been in the works for several months. We want to retain the modern, modular design, but increase the story density based on both analytical and anecdotal feedback. You’ll see more headlines “above the fold,” giving us added flexibility to showcase the most important global news stories. Read more from Jed Sandberg, Michael Shane, and Paul Maya here. More updates to follow in the coming months.
Other important milestones from July:
Bloomberg TV in the U.S. and EMEA collaborated throughout the month on impressive coverage of the rapidly-moving crisis in Greece. We aired a number of special reports that featured our anchors and reporters on the ground in Athens–including Joe Weisenthal, Guy Johnson, Erik Schtazker, Olivia Sterns, and David Gura–with support from many in our global studios. In a moment made for live TV, Joe even had his microphone stolen by a notorious protester (he handled it like an old pro). The quality and depth of our multi-platform global journalism shines in moments like these.
“With All Due Respect” continued its momentum, interviewing eleven Presidential candidates in July, including John Kasich, Rick Santorum, Scott Walker, Donald Trump, George Pataki, as well as Chris Christie and Martin O’Malley for the first time. WADR was the only media outlet granted access to bring TV cameras to broadcast from Hillary Clinton’s campaign headquarters in Brooklyn. These highlights continue to pay off in record video traffic, with 1.1 million video unique viewers in June. Bloomberg Politics marked its highest week in traffic ever with some stellar reporting, including a deep-dive into Donald Trump’s net worth, a report on Jeb Bush’s cross-party Hamptons fundraising, and an authoritative breakdown of Bernie Sanders’s candidacy. A New Hampshire focus group with Trump supporters was hailed as “the talk of the town.”
A number of colleagues in our sales organization have been recognized by min in the publication’s annual Sales Executive of the Year program. Our CRO Paul Caine is a finalist for min’s Sales Team Leader and Jim Williams and Michelle Evers were named finalists for Sales Executive of the Year. Lindsey Nickens was named Rookie of the Year, a category that honors one candidate yearly. Bloomberg Media has been shortlisted for three M&M Global Awards, including B2B Campaign of the Year, Best Partnership Award, and Best Use of Native Advertising. The awards celebrate the most innovative and effective pan-regional advertising campaigns for their strategy, execution, and delivery. Also in July, Allan Wai joined the team as our first global commercial creative director, where he’ll oversee the creative core of client partnerships across our multi-platform suite. Congrats all!
In Asia we named a new executive producer for Bloomberg TV Philippines. joins us from Al Jazeera where he worked as executive producer across bureaus in Qatar, New York, and San Francisco, and where he launched its 24-hour American news service and digital youth channel. Now based in Manila, Owen will be responsible for editorial direction and all aspects of news programming and operations for Bloomberg TV Philippines. In March, we announced a partnership with Cignal TV to create the first 24-hour business news channel in the Philippines.
Bloomberg Content Service signed 22 deals across ten countries, expanding Bloomberg Media’s reach, influence, and revenue with key business audiences in the U.S., Brazil, Switzerland, Singapore, Korea, and Japan. Six of these deals included video, reinforcing our industry leadership in widening audience.
Who’s the most recognizable voice in New York? You might be surprised to learn that it’s one of our media colleagues. Bloomberg Radio anchor Charlie Pellett was profiled by The New Yorker as part of a video documentary series called “A Reporter At Large.” Otherwise known as “the stand clear of the closing doors guy,” Charlie reveals how he broke into a career in radio, his passion for his job at Bloomberg, and the unlikely path to becoming the voice of New York City’s subway announcements. It’s a must-watch, and a fantastic portrayal that shines a light on the kind of incredible people that make up our organization.
Hope everyone is enjoying summer. Here’s to a great August.
