Tag Archives: BusinessWeek
Examining Bloomberg Businessweek’s overhaul
by Chris Roush
Hal Morris, writing on his GrumpyEditor.com blog, examines the efforts to remake Businessweek magazine since it was acquired by Bloomberg in late 2009.
Morris writes, “Most noteworthy was getting the fatherly 80-year-old business weekly to appeal to a much younger readership via content and layouts.
“In the July 16-22 issue, for example, Bloomberg Businessweek splashed an inordinate 47 snapshots of Andrew Mason into a six-page spread on the Groupon CEO.
“Actually, with another image on the contents page, make that 48 shots of the ‘merry prankster,’ as the magazine labeled its subject. One page alone featured 14 Mason photos of assorted sizes.
“Also interesting in the current issue was the sole art plunked in a two-page Olympics story: a dog with an inverted bucket reading ‘The Olympics’ placed over its head.”
Read more here.
NYT personal tech editor to join Bloomberg Businessweek
by Chris Roush
Sam Grobart, the personal technology editor at the New York Times, is leaving the paper’s business section to work at Bloomberg Businessweek.
Larry Ingrassia, the Times business editor, sent out the following memo to the staff on Thursday:
We are sorry to tell you that Sam Grobart has accepted an offer from Bloomberg BusinessWeek to develop multimedia projects and write features on technology and other topics.
We will of course miss Sam. He joined The Times as the personal technology editor in August 2008. His innate sense of good service journalism helped us create the Gadgetwise blog, which focused on how to get the most out of personal technology. He was also instrumental in developing the look and tone of the Bits blog.
More recently he started his own column, Tool Kit, to offer advice on personal tech and he helmed the new Wednesday Tech video show with uncanny skill and presence. Sam may be best remembered for his clever tech videos, like the one where he broke up with his point-and-shoot camera in Bryant Park because with his cell phone’s camera, he no longer needed it.
A fountain of wonderful ideas, he also won a Sabew award and was a Loeb award finalist for the Pogue-o-matic interactive multimedia project for a holiday gift guide, and he was a behind-the-scene force in the Steve Jobs interactive packages The Times developed.
Sam’s last day at The Times will be Aug. 3. We wish him the best in his new endeavor.
Businessweek editor loves long-form journalism
by Chris Roush
Joe Pompeo of Capital New York writes Tuesday about Bloomberg Businessweek editor Josh Tyrangiel, who answered questions Monday night at Housing Works Bookstore.
Pompeo writes, “‘If you look at magazines, oh, eight years ago, they demanded much longer stories because they were making more editorial pages,’ said editor-in-chief Josh Tyrangiel, by way of reply. ‘Most weeklies these days have gone down in pages.’
“But not Businessweek, whose deep-pocketed parent company didn’t flinch when Tyrangiel asked, after landing the editor gig in 2009, that the magazine be increased from 58 total pages to 66 pages of editorial alone.
“‘We just have that luxury of being able to do long stories,’ he said. ‘And as it happens, while other magazines are doing shorter stuff, The New Yorker and Businessweek and The Atlantic and others are really thriving as a place where if you’re a reader, you can go.’
“The fact that Tyrangiel works for a company whose reporters are required to fly business class on any flight longer than four hours was not lost on the guy who’d asked for Tyrangiel’s thoughts on the future of their trade.”
Read more here. Tyrangiel declined to answer as to whether Bloomberg Businessweek was profitable.
Bloomberg Businesweek, Inc. win National Magazine Awards
by Chris Roush
Bloomberg Businessweek and Inc. both won general interest awards Thursday night in the annual National Magazine Awards.
Bloomberg Businessweek won in the general excellence category for general interest magazines, beating out GQ, New York and The New Yorker. The category honors the best of the large-circulation weeklies, biweeklies and general-interest monthlies. The magazine’s editor is Josh Tyrangiel.
Inc. won in the general excellence category for active- and special-interest magazines, beating out The Fader, Field & Stream, Men’s Health and Popular Mechanics. The category honors the best of the magazines serving targeted audiences. The magazine’s editor is Jane Berentson.
Time was named Magazine of the Year. New York won three awards, and The New Yorker won two. Sponsored by the American Society of Magazine Editors, in association with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, the National Magazine Awards are the preeminent awards for magazine journalism.
See all of the winners here.
Bloomberg Businessweek named best cover in business and technology
by Chris Roush
A Bloomberg Businessweek cover after the death of Apple’s Steve Jobs has been named the best cover of the year in the business and technology category by the American Society of Magazine Editors.
The Steve Jobs cover ran as the Oct. 10-16 special issue of the magazine.
The editors’ description of the cover: “Official word of Steve Jobs’ death reached Bloomberg Businessweek as the staff of over 40 was finishing a regular issue. They scrapped it and spent all night finalizing this special issue. In choosing a cover, editor Josh Tyrangiel said, ‘what we wanted to find was something that you hadn’t seen before, something original, and yet something that had a little bit of tension in it.’ Tyrangiel concludes, ‘I think what we found and the way we cropped it really gets at the complicated, sometimes abrasive genius behind all the products that the world admires.’”
Finalists in the business and technology category were The New York for its “Book of Life” cover on Oct. 17, and Bloomberg Businessweek for its Oct 31-Nov 6 cover “Who’s Behind the Mask?”
The overall winner was a New York magazine cover. The winners were announced Thursday at the ASME annual meeting in New York.
See all of the winners here.
Bloomberg Businessweek app wins Webby
by Chris Roush
Bloomberg Businessweek‘s app won the Webby Award, announced Tuesday, in the news (Tablet & All Other Devices) category.
It is the company’s first Webby award.
Bloomberg Businessweek’s app for the iPad, launched in April 2011, has surpassed 100,000 subscribers.
The app has helped Bloomberg Businessweek broaden its reach globally with 35 percent of subscribers residing outside of the United States.
The app is available for free from Newsstand or the App Store on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. Readers can subscribe for $2.99 per month or $29.99 per year.
Print magazine subscribers receive free access to the app on the iPad and now on the iPhone and iPod touch. iPad-only subscribers also get free access to the app on their iPhone and iPod touch.
WSJ, Bloomberg Businessweek win two Overseas Press Club awards
by Chris Roush
The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Businessweek were multiple winners in the Overseas Press Club awards handed out Wednesday night in New York.
The Bob Considine Award for best newspaper or news service interpretation of international affairs went to Marcus Walker, Charles Forelle, Matthew Karnitschnig, David Enrich, Stacy Meichtry, Brian Blackstone, David Gauthier-Villars and Gordon Fairclough of The Journal for “European Disunion.”
The Malcolm Forbes Award for best international business news reporting in newspapers or news services went to Paul Sonne, Steve Stecklow, Farnaz Fassihi, Margaret Coker, Loretta Chao, Christopher Rhoads, Matt Bradley, Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, Nour Malas and Don Clark of The Journal for “Censorship Inc.”
The Ed Cunningham Award for best magazine reporting from abroad went to Charles Graeber from Bloomberg Businessweek for “Nothing To Do But Start Again.”
The Morton Frank Award for best international business news reporting in magazines went to Daniel Golden from Bloomberg Businessweek for”New Oriental Cracks the SAT Code.”
See all of the winners here.
Sluggish performance by business magazines in first quarter
by Chris Roush
TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE
The three largest business magazines — Bloomberg Businessweek, Forbes and Fortune — posted positive results in the first quarter, but virtually every other title struggled, particularly those geared toward small businesses and personal finance topics, according to an analysis of Publishers Information Bureau data by Talking Biz News.
Of the big three, Fortune performed the best, with a 15.2 percent increase in ad revenue to $38.8 million and an 8.1 percent increase in ad pages to 272.14.
Bloomberg Businessweek posted a 9.7 percent increase in ad revenue to $50.6 million and an 8.2 percent rise in ad pages to 338.86, while Forbes posted an 11.7 percent rise in ad revenue to $50.1 million and a 7.4 percent jump in ad pages to 330.83.
However, eight of the 14 business-related titles showed a decline in ad revenue for the first three months of 2012.
The personal finance publications had an especially weak performance. Kiplinger’s Personal Finance recorded a 30.9 percent drop in ad revenue to $3.7 million and a 33.8 percent drop in ad pages to 53.93.
It was followed by SmartMoney, which had a 19.3 percent decline in ad revenue to $6.9 million and a 23.4 percent drop in ad pages to 67.42. Money magazine had a 9.3 percent decline in ad revenue to $20.8 million and a 13.7 percent decline in ad pages to 91.79.
Both Inc. and Entrepreneur also saw declines. Inc.’s ad revenue fell 13.8 percent to $7.6 million and its ad pages fell 15.6 percent to 92.67, while Entrepreneur’s ad revenue fell 9.1 percent to $19.1 million and its ad pages fell 10.1 percent to 219.22.
However, Fast Company reported a 9.6 percent increase in ad revenue to $8.7 million and a 4.4 percent increase in ad pages to 95.85.
See all of the data here.
Biz magazine content on the iPhone
by Chris Roush
Justin Ellis of Nieman Labs looks at how Bloomberg Businessweek is experimenting with delivering its content in different ways for iPhone readers.
Ellis writes, “As on the iPad, Businessweek offers magazine articles, videos, audio interviews, and more; new issues of the magazines are downloaded into the Newsstand. Aside from obligatory design differences, the apps are identical in content; neither offers the regular updating of a daily news app.
“The company says the app, which launched this time last year, has gained more than 100,000 subscribers on the iPad. The iPhone version is an attempt at opening up that number a little further. Oke Okaro, the global head of mobile for Bloomberg, told me it only makes sense to put its product on a device people have with them at all times. ‘Every waking hour of the day, smartphones are in our hands. We fully expect that we’re going to see a different type of usage,’ Okaro said.
“Bloomberg did add one new element in the iPhone app: it gives readers a word count for stories, making it easier to pick out the most digestible piece given whatever amount of time you have. “We know through the course of the day on iPhone people are going to come in and out, and we want to give them a perspective of the (time) commitment,” he said.
“One feature both versions share is the ability to play audio in the background, whether reading a story in the app or doing other tasks on your iPad or iPhone. Okaro believes that would be handy to someone reading on a bus, the subway or waiting for an appointment. In other words, someone most likely using a smartphone.”
Read more here.
Bloomberg Businessweek launches iPhone, iPod apps
by Chris Roush
Bloomberg Businessweek announced Wednesday that its magazine is now available on the iPhone and iPod touch.
Bloomberg Businessweek also announced that its iPad application, launched in April 2011, has now surpassed 100,000 subscribers. The app has helped Bloomberg broaden its reach globally with 35 percent of subscribers residing outside of the United States.
“Many of our readers own an iPhone so delivering an optimal experience and lightning fast downloads of magazine issues is critical. With the app, it takes 3 minutes or less on a 3G connection to download an entire issue to the iPhone or iPad.” said Oke Okaro, general manager and global head of Bloomberg mobile, in a statement.
Unique features of the Bloomberg Businessweek app include exclusive video featuring editor Josh Tyrangiel and his creative team as they share the story behind each week’s cover; audio from Tom Keene, Charlie Rose, and various Bloomberg editors and live market info and news on companies mentioned in articles.
Readers can subscribe for $2.99 per month or $29.99 per year. Print magazine subscribers receive free access to Bloomberg Businessweek. iPad-only subscribers also get free access to Bloomberg Businessweeek on their iPhone and iPod touch.
