Business News Arms War Heating Up
Business and financial news remains the most lucrative topical content on the news web. While everyone had to pull in their paws during the big, bad recession, we’re now seeing the gloves come off. A few of the moves:
- Dow Jones bought the half of Smart Money magazine that it didn’t own before, from Hearst. Dow Jones gets another per fi weapon in its consumer arsenal. Hearst takes a payment and moves on — in part to further invest in its fastest growing segment Hearst Business Media, under Richard Malloch’s savvy leadership.
- The Wall Street Journal has launched Digits, a new daily web broadcast, pulling — can you say s-y-n-e-r-g-y — personalities from the Journal, Barron’s, All Things Digital, Dow Jones Newswires and Fox Business Network.
- Dow Jones’ Marketwatch is adding to its newsletters, launching Revolution Investing and planning to add to extend Mark Hulbert’s newsletter franchise. (How much longer will Hulbert also write for the New York Times’ Sunday Business section?)
- Reuters hires the Financial Times managing editor Chrystia Freeland to be Global Editor at Large (great title).
- The FT — now the emerging post child for paid content “metering” models — signs up Paypal to provide a pay-per-view alternative for payment.
- Bloomberg launches an ad campaign, promising to “reinvent the business magazine” (hey, wasn’t that Portfolio?) when it debuts its shiny, new bargain buy anew on April 23.
- The New York Times scooped up more SABEW (Society of American Business Editors and Writers) awards — 13 — than any other news organization, last night.
It’s war for the business reader, the global business reader, the investor, the savvy consumer. It’s no accident that it’s been the FT and the Journal that have led paid content models. Expect to see lots more products, steals and innovations, as a half-dozen top business news brands fight for may be the most lucrative slice of web pie.
