Global news network Bloomberg has reported record revenue in 2018 at a time when digital media publishers are widely trimming the fat amid intense competition. Justin B Smith, the chief executive of Bloomberg media, circulated a company-wide memo outlining revenue growth of 16% year-over-year in 2018. Without revealing earning figures, the chief exec divulged some of the growth the company has exhibited in the last year. Smith said the company managed to grow digital advertising revenue by 15%, its new digital ad formats grew by 44%. Bloomberg Live was cited to have grown by 82% too. The former president of Atlantic Media, The Atlantic, The Week and founder of Quartz said: “2018 was a challenging year for the news media. While competitors pivoted to stem declining valuations and counter the dominance of the tech platforms, Bloomberg Media invented our way forward by trying new things. This type of risk-taking is the essence of Bloomberg LP’s company culture of action and entrepreneurialism.” Last year, Bloomberg pushed out new formats like its ‘Pick Your Own Brexit’ Game, launched a paywall, won a Drum Online Media Award with its Twitter news network TicToc, and laid out an initiative to get more women in its newsrooms. Smith added: “We’ll aggressively expand our four new businesses and integrate them more deeply across our existing suite of products, platforms, services and teams.” On the coming year, Smith said, TicToc will be extended beyond Twitter and onto new platforms, it looks for a 60% increase in subscriptions, and its marketing and strategic services “come to life” this year. The announcement was made a week after Verizon, Gannett and BuzzFeed made a cumulative 1,000 media job cuts, indicating the competitiveness of the market. One month ago, BuzzFeed founder Jonah Perretti outlined he was open to media mergers as a means of curbing costs with Vice, Vox Media, Group Nine and Refinery.
Bloomberg has revealed that its digital advertising revenue rose by 15% in 2018, amid a challenging environment for news media. In a company-wide memo, Bloomberg media CEO Justin B Smith cited innovative formats and initiatives for the growth, which included the launch of a paywall, a scheme aimed at increasing the number of women in the company’s newsrooms and an award for its Twitter news network. The company said it now had more than 1 million unique monthly visitors to Bloomberg.com, up from about 740,000 daily visitors.