Bloomberg wins bidding for BusinessWeek

Bloomberg L.P., the financial-media behemoth founded by New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, has won the bidding for BusinessWeek magazine.

The New York Times Media Decoder blog says the purchase signals a broadening of ambitions for Bloomberg, long known for its comprehensive data terminals and financial audience.

BusinessWeek.com reports that "cash offer is in the $2 million to $5 million range and that it has agreed to assume liabilities, including potential severance payments. It remains to be seen how much of the magazine’s 400-plus staff Bloomberg plans to cut, but reports of a planned scorched earth campaign are overblown, say sources."

McGraw-Hill Cos., which has owned the magazine for 80 years, put it up for sale after it lost $43 million last year, according to The Times blog, which also reported:

"Late in the game, a consortium from Thomson Reuters and ZelnickMedia entered the bidding, according to reports. Thomson Reuters declined to comment on the report.

"Other bidders included OpenGate Capital, the private equity firm that bought TV Guide for $1 last year, and Mortimer B. Zuckerman, who withdrew from the bidding."

Bloomberg enters a bid for BusinessWeek

With the deadline for bids for BusinessWeek just under a week away, The New York Post reports that Bloomberg L.P. has entered the bidding.

BusinessWeek's Jon Fine reports on Bloomberg entering the fray.

As Fine reports, "Bloomberg’s move comes in the very endgame of the process, with final bids for BusinessWeek coming due Tuesday, Sept. 15. "

Journalists can build a brand like a rock star

Sure they can!

In the top story on BusinessWeek's Management page this afternoon, Dan Schawbel writes about how anyone with an Internet connection and some ambition can develop their own marketing platform.

Schawbel points to the results of a study conducted on July 20 by Wetpaint and the Altimeter Group which shows that the most engaged brands on social media saw their revenue grow by 18%.

His examples are celebrity brands: Kathy Ireland, MC Hammer, Gary Vaynerchuk. All of them quickly saw impact on their brands after using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and video blogs.

Journalists can do the same thing. Of course, revenue is counted not by sales but by loyalty, readers, viewers, story tips and, perhaps, longevity in the business.

• New York Times' Brian Stelter has 11,750 followers on Twitter.
• All Things Digital's Kara Swisher has 116,000 followers and drives a lot of traffic to her All Things Digital blog, which is part of The Wall Street Journal Digital Network.
• Michael Banovsky, who covers the auto industry in Toronto, has nearly 4,000 followers.
• And Miami Herald tech reporter Bridget Carey has 1,800 followers.

All are respectable business journalists, but none are household names. They would not expect to attract followers in the numbers that Oprah or Ellen or Ashton would.

But they are just four of hundreds of business journalists using social media to develop their brands and to reach an audience they may not have had before.

Whether you are a freelancer or get a regular paycheck, you are your brand. And you can always take lessons from the stars. It's Hammer time.

BusinessWeek.com's new look

Today BusinessWeek unveiled a newly designed home page for their Web site, the first step in complete overall of the site that will unfold over the next few months.
BusinessWeek's John Byrne said the new look is aimed to "increase repeat visits to the homepage, drive more from the homepage to the rest of the site via improved navigation, to clearly communicate BusinessWeek.com offerings and special features through intelligent use of navigation and page layout, and to focus the homepage offering on our core audience of global business professionals and their destination mindset."
Byrne added that Businessweek.com currently has 50 million monthly page views and some 10 million unique visitors worldwide.
New additions include the following:

* Increased news and analysis on the most important breaking stories of the day in business.
* Expanded coverage of the stock markets around the world with more detailed data on the companies that are making news in the U.S., Europe and Asia.
* A Business Exchange window to see what our users are reading and how they’re reacting to stories on more than 1,500 topics, from commercial space travel to Starbucks, from around the web.

For more click here.

Pinching Forbes

The New York Times reported today that even Forbes is feeling the squeeze of the economy.
While Forbes magazine has 920,000 subscribers, its average issue price has steadily decreased and its ad pages are down 15 percent in the first quarter compared to last year.
The article reports Forbes has stopped matching contributions to its 401k program, laid off roughly 100 of its 1,000 employees since November and started five-day unpaid furloughs for its staff.
In the story, Mark M. Edmiston of AdMedia Partners asserts Forbes isn't worth half the $75 million its worth has been estimated in the past.
Yet the Times reports that Forbes' misery isn't without company, with the Publishers Information Bureau listing revenue of over $338 million for Forbes, $276 million for Fortune and $236 million for BusinessWeek.
The story shows the recession is impacting both people's demand for Forbes' economic content and its employees' desire to cover it. From the story:

“Everyone here likes the magazine, the people who run it, and most of us believe in the mission,” said one editorial employee who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak with a reporter. “But that sense of mission is sort of hard to sustain when most of the news is bad. Capitalism is a less sexy topic for everyone, including us.”

View the story here.

Is covering capitalism less sexy for you? What do you think about the struggling of Forbes and its competitors? Comment and let use know.

WSJ investigative reporter dies at 54

John Wilke, an investigative reporter for The Wall Street Journal, died of pancreatic cancer on Friday at age 54, according to reports from the Examiner.
Wilke began his career at BusinessWeek in 1984 and then covered technology and business for the Boston Globe. He has worked at The Journal since 1989.
From the story:

In recent years, his investigation of earmark deals cut by members of Congress for friends or supporters led to last year's indictment of then Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz. Another story revealed the way Democratic Rep. John Murtha used earmarks to bring federal contracts to his Pennsylvania district.

Wilke's stories also included a 2005 expose on mutual-fund trader Mario Gabelli, who settled civil fraud claims for about $100 million six months after the story appeared. In 2000, Wilke scored an extraordinary interview with U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson...

To read more about Wilke check out this story from The Wall Street Journal.

Beyond the big guns

The New York Post highlights business-themed magazines that are sometimes overshadowed by big players like Fortune, BusinessWeek and Condé Nast Portfolio.
Here's a sampling from their report:

• Black Enterprise: The magazine, which focuses on the rich and soon-to-be-rich, has almost 1 million readers and is one of publishing's great success stories, according to the report. It recently got a makeover and includes stories on politics, business and news. For example, the magazine covered the $11.6 million award to Anucha Browne Sanders, who won a sexual harassment settlement from Knicks Coach Isiah Thomas.

• Dealmaker:The New York Post says Dealmaker is a magazine for investment bankers who want to read about great they are and how much society loves them. The magazine recently featured Tom Perkins, 75, who still buys $500,000 cars and yachts.

To read the full report click here.

This Week's Movers

While the much-talked about BusinessWeek memo, announcing layoffs and a reorganization, is arguably the week's most buzzed job news, it wasn't all bad this week. Here are other changes:

• Caroline Waxler will join MainStreet.com, set to launch in early 2008, as the general manager and editor. A former Forbes reporter, Waxler was also recently the markets editor for the now-defunct Business 2.0. She starts her new role next week.

• Commonwealth Business Media's Peter Tirschwell moves from magazine group vice president to senior advisory. The vice president of business development, Liam Power, will take over Tirschwell's former role. Read more.

• CMP Channel's CRN and VARBusiness made several changes with four promotions and a new hire to gear up their coverage. Andrew Hickey, a TechTarget veteran, was named senior editor, covering infrastructure technologies. Edward F. Moltzen was promoted to Managing Editor Test Center. Moltzen covers systems and printers as well as peripherals and writes "The Chart," a blog about the business aspects of high tech. Jennifer Hagendorf Follet, moved up to Managing Editor Technology. For more moves and the entire release, click here.
  

• And popular tech columnist David Pogue was named a CNBC contributor. Read the earlier post here.

BusinessWeek: layoffs and staff shuffle

As many as a dozen BusinessWeek employees will be laid off as magazine combines it print and digital staff into a one editorial operation, according to a report from Folio.
An internal memo was given to staff on Wednesday by editor Stephen Adler.
Folio points out that the layoffs come as BusinessWeek experiences success. It's readership is up 3 percent and newsstand sales up 25 percent.
To read the full report click here.

BusinessWeek gets Linked In

BusinessWeek is getting their Web site all linked in. MediaPost.com is reporting that the publisher is one of the first to get the LinkedIn invite, which will allow BusinessWeek developers to utilize functionality from the popular business social-network site for use on businessweek.com. According to the article,

"In one feature, LinkedIn will create links in the text of BusinessWeek editorial content for the proper names of businesses and people. By mousing over the links, the reader can determine how they are connected to the individual or entity in question, including how many of their own contacts are connected."

Will the synergy result in making businessweek.com a place where business is done rather than just talked about? Will you as a reader be connected through your network to business news makers of the day? And if so, what will that mean for journalists? We'll be watching...and in the meantime,we'll be beefing up our LinkedIn profiles.
Read Mediapost.com's full report here.