Bloomberg Aims to Compete Directly With British Press

Justin Smith said he was leaving Bloomberg Media as its chief executive four months ago to start Semafor, an online publication aimed at English-speaking, college-educated readers around the world. He teamed up with Ben Smith, a former media columnist for The New York Times, who will serve as Semafor’s editor in chief. Mr. Micklethwait and Mr. Havens said Semafor, which is expected to start publication this year, had no bearing on the timing of Bloomberg’s global strategy.

“We’re not page-watching on that necessarily but wish them the best of course,” Mr. Havens said.

Mr. Micklethwait and Mr. Havens, who became chief executive after Justin Smith stepped down, jointly pitched the initiative as part of a broader strategy to Michael R. Bloomberg, the billionaire founder of Bloomberg L.P., in December. He responded enthusiastically, Mr. Havens said.

Both executives declined to say how much the company was investing in the effort, but Mr. Micklethwait said Mr. Havens was spending “large amounts of money” on journalists, engineering and marketing for Bloomberg UK. Revenue at Bloomberg Media in 2021 was up 50 percent from the previous year, and it is up an additional 26 percent in the first quarter of 2022, Mr. Havens said.

Bloomberg Media has nearly 400,000 digital subscribers, four years after putting up a paywall on its websites. More than 40 percent of the subscribers are outside the United States, with Britain the second-biggest market, Mr. Havens said.

“At a time when the U.K. is at risk of following the U.S. down a path toward media that is hyperpartisan and highly sensationalized — and suffering the kind of severe consequences we have seen here in America,” Mr. Bloomberg said in a statement, “we are expanding our commitment to high-quality and fact-based journalism there, focused especially on business and economic news.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/11/business/media/bloomberg-uk.html