Lost Remote has an interview with global head of mobile at Bloomberg Oke Okaro on the TV channel’s new iPad app, which was released yesterday.

The free app allows any iPad user to stream Bloomberg TV’s full 24-hour broadcast over WiFi or 3G.

The post states:

Bloomberg’s decision to make their TV content available to any iPad user sets an extremely innovative precedent in a TV world dominated by [US cable television] network-MSO relationships.

Lost Remote goes on to explain:

While the app’s main focus is video, users can also get live market data and related news for companies mentioned in videos. You can customize Bloomberg’s familiar scrolling ticker.

Other added features include the ability to watch in landscape or portrait, download videos for offline viewing, search the content library, schedule reminders for upcoming shows, and share via social networks.

 

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Bloomberg reported late on Wednesday (28 September) that News Corporation’s iPad-only newspaper the Daily has been averaging around 120,000 readers a week, said to be “less than a quarter of the number the company said it needs to make money”.

The figures came from advertising executive working with the publication.

News Corp., whose Chief Executive Officer Rupert Murdoch personally introduced the publication about eight months ago, may have even fewer paying subscribers since people can read the Daily free for two weeks. The 120,000 figure is for so-called unique weekly visitors, which includes people who pay and those who don’t, said John Nitti, executive vice president of Publicis Groupe SA (PUB)’s media-buying division Zenith Optimedia.

Bloomberg adds that Murdoch had said in February the publication, which was launched in February, would need 500,000 subscribers “to break even”.

Read the Bloomberg report here.

• paidContent: News Corp’s ‘iPad paper’ the Daily to launch on 2 Feb
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• The Cutline: Steve Jobs to join Murdoch on stage for unveiling of new iPad publication

Arthur Sulzberger has said Bloomberg’s report stating the development of the New York Times’ paywall cost between $40 million and $50 million is “vastly wrong”, but refused to say what the switch to paid digital content did cost, according to a post on paidContent.

Sulzberger also declined to offer any numbers when it comes to subscribers, saying it was too soon but that the company would provide some details eventually. At another point, asked about complaints that the pay plan is too complex, he urged people to be patient. Noting that the company was able to tweak the system between the launch in Canada and the US-global launch 10 days later, Sulzberger said: “We’re going to learn, adapt, make it simpler. But I don’t agree that it’s too complex. It’s new. Let it breathe for a little bit before you make judgment.”

paidContent’s full post is at this link.

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The unravelling disaster in Japan has seen record online traffic and a hike in TV audiences.

A spokesman for BBC News told Journalism.co.uk that there were 15.9 million unique users on the site last Friday (11 February), an all-time record - beating the previous best, election results day, which saw 11.4 million unique users.

There were 9.5 million page impressions for the main story, and 6.1 million for the live text page.

And this very visual story saw record video views too. The BBC News site had more than six million hits on its live video stream on Friday and seven million unique users of video, compared to a previous high of 2.7 million, for video views on the day of the general election.

The BBC News website also had a record weekend in terms of web traffic, with 10 million unique users on Saturday, and nearly eight million on Sunday.

CNN is also reporting a large increase in traffic. In a release, CNN Digital said between Friday and Sunday, CNN.com had 264 million global page views and 87 million global video streams.

The network said more CNN.com video was watched in those three days than during the previous 30 days.

Sky News said by 4.30pm on Friday, page impressions had more than doubled – to nearly five million – and unique users had also doubled.

Channel 4 has told Journalism.co.uk that it had trebled its usual web traffic on Sunday.

TV News

Bloomberg Television claims to be the first cable news network to report the quake, six minutes after the record tremor.

All the TV news providers we have spoken to have reported above average ratings for the subsequent days. On Friday, Sky News had one of its 10 largest audience days ever, with only the Iraq war having a higher daily reach. The BBC had an audience of almost six million to its 10pm news programme on BBC 1 on Sunday; ITV had almost five million viewers to a special report on Friday night while Channel 4 News had 1.5 million viewers on Saturday.

The BBC told Journalism.co.uk it had 5.7 million viewers to Friday’s 6pm news on BBC 1 and 5.3 million viewers to the 10pm bulletin when average ratings are 4.3 million and 4.8 million respectively. ITV News had 4.6 million viewers of its 6.30pm news programme on Friday, a 700,000 increase on its average audience of 3.9 million and an audience of 2.9 million for Friday’s News at Ten, up from an average of 2.5 million viewers. Channel 4 News said that its special report on Friday night had 1.3 million viewers, rising to 1.5 million on Saturday.

Social Media

And of course social media is rife with mentions of ‘quake’, ‘tsunami’ and ‘nuclear’.

In the hour that followed the quake on Friday, Tweet-o-Meter reported 1,200 tweets a minute coming out of Japan. And at the time of writing (Wednesday lunchtime), tweets from Tokyo are again peaking the Tweet-o-Meter scale at 1,200 a minute. In a release, CNN has reported that its breaking news account on Twitter acquired followers at a rate of 10 times greater than average and now totals more than four million followers.

Facebook users were also discussing and sharing first hand knowledge of the quake. BBC News created this map based on mentions of key words in status updates.

And, of course, people have been flocking to see user generated and videos from the news channels on YouTube. This dramatic footage from Russia Today has clocked up more than 10 million hits. Meanwhile, Channel 4 has had 200,000 views on this video of Krishnan Guru-Murthy with before and after tsunami shots and ITN Productions is reporting record views of the ITN News Channel on YouTube.

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Bloomberg News this week announced plans to launch Bloomberg View – a new editorial page which will feature columns and commentary across all of Bloomberg’s platforms.

In a release Bloomberg said that David Shipley and James Rubin will be joining Bloomberg News as executive editors in January, to lead the new feature.

“I look forward to joining Bloomberg at a time when rational thought and commentary in the media is needed now more than ever before,” Rubin said. “There is an urgent need for ideology-free, empirically-based editorial positions about the pressing issues of our time, and we plan to deliver them.”

In a report by the New York Times Matthew Winkler, editor in chief of Bloomberg News, said the editorial page will be “consistent with the values and beliefs” of founder Michael Bloomberg, who is also the mayor of New York City.

“I fully expect us in our Bloomberg View always to reflect those values. In fact, I want people to come away from reading the Bloomberg View infused with those beliefs and values.”

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According to Talking Biz News, Bloomberg Businessweek has made cuts to its online staff, including news editor of Businessweek.com Phil Mintz.

Full story on Talking Biz News at this link…

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The Business Insider has spotted that Bloomberg appears to have started to provide its news content on the Yahoo Finance site.

According to BI’s report, a Yahoo spokesperson confirmed that the company has added Bloomberg.com content to its financial news portfolio. Business Insider adds that this is one of many deals to increase the site’s original content.

Yahoo Finance, which has content deals with dozens of financial news sites (including Business Insider), also is in the process of ramping up its original content. The site just poached outgoing Newsweek economics editor Dan Gross, and is looking for an editor to head up a new financial news blog.

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Financial news wire Bloomberg will be creating jobs for more than 100 journalists and analysts in Washington DC with the release of its new policy news service Bloomberg Government, according to a report by the Reynolds Center for Business Journalism.

The resource, which is currently in development stages, advertises itself as “a customized resource for professionals who need to understand the business implications of government actions in real time”.

This comprehensive, subscription-based, online tool collects best-in-class data, provides high-end analysis and analytic tools, and delivers deep, reliable, quick and unbiased reporting from a team of more than 2,300 journalists and multimedia specialists worldwide. It also offers news aggregated from thousands of the top trusted news sources from around the globe.

Those interested in filling the new roles will need to be data-focused and able to combine reporting skills with policy information analysis, a spokeswoman told the Reynolds Center.

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Budding video journalists and future news presenters can apply for free TV production training as part of Bloomberg’s Broadcast Volunteer programme.

Applications are being accepted until 18 August for a September start and are open to anyone aged between 18-25, not in education, employment or training. Bloomberg advertise the programme as providing:

Eight days of intensive training in TV Production and Broadcasting skills plus three top-up sessions.

At least 80 hours volunteering at Roundhouse Studios in September and October 2010, putting your skills into practice by supporting Roundhouse TV and Film projects and documenting Roundhouse events.

Great work experience to put on your CV.

See more here…

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Bloomberg News journalists have been warned that their tweets are inaccurate … because they include opinion.

The Forbes Biz blog (and others) reports a recent memo from editor in chief Matt Winkler: “At Bloomberg News, the three most important words are accuracy, accuracy and  accuracy. The following tweets on Bloomberg.com during congressional testimony compromised our integrity.”

One example: 

Twitter post by Bloomberg reporter: “Blanfkein working hard not to start the head-bobbing thing. He was so upset/vehement at the FCIC hearing he kept bobbing his head.”

Winkler comment: ((xxx working hard xxx is an assertion/opinion and therefore inaccurate as we can’t know what Blankfein is thinking. xxx upset/vehement is an assertion/opinion and xxx bobbing xxx is an opinion masquerading as observation and therefore inaccurate))

Full post at this link…

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Last week’s Radio 4 In Business programme looked at business newspapers and how some of the world’s best known-brands are struggling to compete with online rivals and in the face of the economic downturn.

Well worth a listen at this link, it includes interview with representatives from the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Bloomberg and Bloomberg Business Week.

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Business Insider has grilled Kevin Krim, global head of Bloomberg Digital, on the site’s new design.

Krim says:

We felt it was critical to create a new platform, a new palette, a new canvas to deliver a must-use site for news throughout the day, every week. We already have a good global audience, we want to grow that.

(…)

We’re also focusing on aggregation. We’ll link to third party sites if we think its relevant to our audience, we’ll show it, no matter who it’s done by. There’s not a lot of options for business people. When they wake up in the morning, we want to be their one stop.

He also admits the re-launch is part of some serious rivalry:

BI: So, basically you want to kill your rivals like the Wall Street Journal, FT, Reuters?

KK: That’s the idea.

Full post at this link…

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Via Livemint.com, an Indian business news site launched with the Wall Street Journal, comes a report of an extraordinary legal case in India.

I noticed this a while ago, but have only recently had this confirmed by Bloomberg UTV.

Indian business channel Bloomberg UTV is pursuing legal action against the managing editor of CNBC TV18, Udayan Mukherjee, following comments he made on air about a rival channel. It alleges his comments were ‘false’ and ‘slanderous and derogatory’ to the channel’s reputation.

In response, Mukherjee’s lawyers claim that he did not make any reference to Bloomberg, directly or indirectly.

You can see the original video at the centre of the row on Livemint.

Bloomberg UTV’s spokesperson confirmed to Journalism.co.uk that it has decided to go ahead with its RS 500 crore legal suit (around US$109 million).

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According to Talking Biz News, Bloomberg is planning a new product scheduled to launch this summer, named ‘First Word’.

The new service, called by one employee as a “wire within a wire,” is designed to compete against StreetAccount. Street Account is a service where writers use their market experience to report “only those stories that are new and material” to investors, according to its website.

Full post at this link…

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Bloomberg will acquire BusinessWeek magazine from McGraw-Hill Cos, it was announced yesterday. The terms of the arrangement were not made public, but ‘knowledgeable sources’ said the price is between $2 million and $5 million, reports BusinessWeek.

The BusinessWeek sales process has had ‘plenty of turns’ over the last three months, paidContent comments. It charts the sale to Bloomberg though its archive of links.

• MinOnline: John Byrne to leave BusinessWeek, start new digital media firm
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