NEW YORK, June 24: Is anyone familiar with the name of Thomson Corporation in Bangladesh? Very few one would suspect. It is a information giant that rarely caught the imagination of the media. It is now in news for two reasons; It has acquired the world famous British news agency the Reuters and the second that the combined agencies will challenge the monopoly of Bloomberg News which dominated the world of financial news.
Very few again is familiar with Bloomberg L.P., an agency with total sway over the US financial world. There is no Bloomberg subscriber in Bangladesh. Bloomberg is very expensive. Bloomberg LP is owned by New York Mayor MiChael Bloomberg. He is the owner of the company long before he became mayor of New York, the largest city in the world. Bloomberg LP was floated in 80s. It revolutionised financial information by taking it away from the established companies like Reuters and Dow Jones. The takeover of Reuters by Thomson might be a first step to reclaiming a business that Bloomberg redefined and in which Bloomberg has set the standard..
The combined revenue earnings of Thomson and Reuters totalled $12.5 billion, more than twice those of Bloomberg. It has five times as many employees. Bloomberg's revenue earning stood at $5.4 billion. The rapid growth of internet could upset the plans of both the financial news agencies.. Sites Yahoo finance and Google finance are becoming a threat. Growing advertising ambitions of powerhouses like Google and Microsoft are creating alarm and panic in advertising agencies.
And for news media it is becoming from bad to worse. Newspapers revenue earnings have been declining in double digit directly threatening the mere survival of some reputed American newspapers. The flow of advertising dollars to web sites from print has picked up speed, New York Times said. Reputed newspapers like The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, The Denver Post and the Daily News are in bad shape. The overall ad revenue fell almost 8.0 per cent in 2007. It is running at 12 per cent this year. Papers are cutting cost by shedding thousand of employees, eliminating distribution routes, printing fewer and smaller pages. Despite all these profit margins continue to drop alarmingly. Even papers like the New York Times and Washington Post have been badly affected.
It is going lot worse than anyone predicted and if we have double digit ad declines for new two years many papers will die automatically. Newspaper industry is planning structural changes including six or even five issues a week and outsource printing. Internet is also beating wire services and TV channels in breaking news.
Bloomberg News faces challenges from Thomson-Reuter deal
From Fazle Rashid | Published: June 24, 2008 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
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