Bloomberg L.P - Growth Via New Media Outlets

In 1991, the firm diversified into a new industry when Bloomberg hired former Wall Street Journal writer Matthew Winkler as the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg's Business News, a Washington, D.C.-based upstart news service that would cover the financial aspects of politics, business, general news, and sports. The news service eventually allowed Bloom-berg to complete with the likes of Bridge Information, Dow Jones, Knight-Ridder, Reuters, and other news wires that served the world's largest newspapers and magazines.

That year, in what many would later call one of his most astute maneuvers, Bloomberg convinced the New York Times to publish Bloomberg Business News articles with the Bloomberg byline in exchange for providing the newspaper with a free terminal. It wasn't until January 1, 1999 that Bloomberg began charging a monthly fee for the terminals it had been giving away for free to newspapers and magazines. By 1992, Bloomberg had secured a similar deal with every major newspaper in the United States, essentially guaranteeing name recognition among financial news readers for his company.

Bloomberg began capitalizing on that name recognition almost immediately by venturing into other types of media. It acquired radio station WNEW, based in New York City, for $13.5 million, and changed its call letters to WBBR, which stood for Bloomberg Business Radio. The company also began publishing the Bloomberg Magazine, and in 1994, launched a new Sunday insert magazine called Bloomberg Personal. That publication's initial circulation of roughly 6 million marked it as the magazine industry's largest launch to date.

The company moved into television when it aired its first episode of the Bloomberg Forum, a television show that consisted of interviews with corporate executives. In January of 1994, Bloomberg Information Television, a 24-hour financial news service produced by Maryland Public Television and distributed by DirecTV, made its debut. In 1995, to allow subscribers to access the television service from their terminals, Bloomberg began wiring each terminal for compatibility with DirecTV satellite dishes. Bloomberg Information Television was launched in Europe that year. By then, Bloomberg Business News had expanded to include more than 330 reporters in 56 bureaus, and the firm had installed its 50,000th terminal.

Bloomberg Press began publishing works from its two imprints, Bloomberg Personal Bookshelf, aimed at consumers, and Bloomberg Professional Library, targeting financial professionals, in 1996. Bloomberg Business News was renamed Bloomberg News in 1997, when it began including more general coverage. That year, Bloomberg and WEFA reached a licensing agreement that granted Bloomberg permission to post WEFA's Country Profile and Country Monitor reports—including detailed economic and political news from more than 100 countries—on its terminals. The firm launched two new print magazines, Wealth Manager and On Investing, in 1999.