Media = Power

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My first job out of college was working at Bloomberg. Back then everyone started off in Global Customer Support (GCUS) answering the phones. The benefit of this was similar to working in the mail room. You started at the bottom out of college and learned everything about the business. Not only the financial terminal which we all joined Bloomberg to learn about and become masters of, but we also learned about the News, Radio, and the man behind Bloomberg, Mike. One thing that I learned very early was the power of the media business. We had the Bloomberg News team, the Magazine about the terminal, Radio, Bloomberg Businessweek (acquisition), and Bloomberg TV.

Whether Bloomberg’s media side broke even, lost money, or was slightly profitable during my time at Bloomberg, the one thing senior leaders on the business side always stressed was it didn’t matter. News and media gave us eyeballs. When stories broke, the markets moved. Having exclusive content or content earlier than others on the terminal drove sales. When you control the news and the media, you control what people see. This was the genius part of Bloomberg.

The Bloomberg news feed was so powerful, that I once paid $30,000 per month for access to the feed while working at a hedge fund! It was so much information it took us a year just to figure out how to consume it and make sense of it!

When Elon bought Twitter he bought eyeballs. He bought attention and in a way, he controls modern-day media. During Trump’s first presidency, every hedge fund employee and investor tracked every time Trump tweeted. He instantly got space on people’s precious monitors (I typically had 3 monitors). Whether you were a Trump supporter or not, you had to know what he was talking about because it moved markets.

Now that Elon controls Twitter or X, he controls a huge media property. He controls what we see, he controls the algo. Every time I open Twitter I feel like I see a dozen Elon tweets in my feed. Seems odd, but then again he controls the company. Now Elon is joking about buying MSNBC. He joked about Twitter in the past and look what happened.

What about CNBC, which is supposedly for sale too? Can you imagine someone buying CNBC and now controlling one of the popular financial news outlets (even if the content is pretty horrible)? What billionaire or individual who wants to move the markets is thinking about owning CNBC? Maybe Robinhood surprises everyone and bites? Or maybe Bloomberg buys it? Or what about Factset as a way to compete against Bloomberg News?

Controlling media is powerful. It can drive sales. It can drive influence. It can be used and it can be abused. I learned early in my career the power of owning media assets. It’s one of the reasons I am so bullish on newsletters and platforms like Beehiiv.

Bloomberg has one of the most powerful assets in the financial markets. Their news business gives them an unfair advantage. It’s part of what makes their terminal so valuable. As more media assets go up for sale in the coming years, I am watching who acquires them and why….

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