Bloomberg’s switch to a single language feed has been rewarded with a steep increase in connected households.
The financial news channel closed 2009 with 143 million households and the architect of the success Lindsey Oliver, commercial director in charge of distribution for Europe, the Middle East and Africa will now add marketing and distribution for Asia to her responsibilities.
“The English language distribution had 28 million households, if you added on the other languages, the German, the French and the Spanish, altogether it came to about 74 million throughout the region,” Oliver told Broadband TV News. “When we closed down the local language channels we went to every single one of those distributors and said we’re not going to have your language version of Bloomberg, would you like the English version? What was gratifying was that there only was one operator that said they could not because as a matter of policy because we only have local language”.
Bloomberg’s European growth has come from both cable and satellite distribution including the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Russia and the Middle East. The latter includes 20 million households on Nilesat, where Oliver says she has taken the most conservative estimates for free to air reception, as opposed to some of the larger figures that have been quoted.
During 2010 the broadcaster is looking to further increase distribution through the hotel market.
Oliver joined Bloomberg Television in January 2009. She has previously worked as commercial director for Al Jazeera International and at CNBC.
