Bloomberg Media is betting on increased website functionality and deeper reporting to keep it ahead of generative AI-based information providers.
Press Gazette spoke the US-based brand’s chief digital officer Julia Beizer who revealed the site now has 540,000 subscriptions (up from 500,000 six months ago).
Bloomberg has unveiled a series of product improvements, including:
- More deep-dive longer reads on Business Week (which moves to a monthly print edition in July) led by new editor Brad Stone
- An investment in more weekend coverage aimed at consumers led by new weekend editor Katherine Bell
- No limit on the number of companies subscribers can add to watch lists (which provide a bespoke news and data feed for readers)
- More ways to connect between markets data with news and analysis throughout the site.
Beizer revealed that in its new monthly print and online guise, Business Week will be “the home for narrative journalism”.
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Business Week articles already drive up to five times as many reads as articles published elsewhere on the site, she added.
All 2,700 Bloomberg journalists have the opportunity to contribute longer article pitches to the title, which has a print circulation of 228,000 as well as its own section on the main Bloomberg Media site.
Beizer said 30% of Bloomberg’s traffic comes direct to the homepage, making this an important area of development for the title.
Beizer said this was a key strength of the site, as was the fact that the average reader visits the site ten days per month.
She said the reader acquisition strategy was focused heavily around attracting loyal readers who will stay with the title, rather than seeking rapid growth and facing a high rate of churn.
Asked about the threat posed to publishers by AI-driven search, she said: “We are building a business in our own right, that’s where our team’s focus has been.
“These changes are disquieting but they are also clarifying. We need to focus on asking who are we for and how do we serve our readers better?”
She said that while generative AI can now answer reader questions: “Users really value the storytelling we can provide and the context we can provide.”
Bloomberg continues to operate a dynamic paywall which means the number of free articles offered varies from reader to reader. A new user of the site will be offered more free articles than someone who is identified as already being familiar with it.
Bloomberg UK was relaunched two years ago. The UK is Bloomberg Media’s second biggest market for subscriptions after the US.
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