Inside the M&A Press with Bloomberg's Alex Sherman

The hosts frame Bloomberg as a technology company whose best-known product happens to be media. Michael Bloomberg founded the company in 1981 after earning money from Salomon Brothers’ sale, and the business became known for its terminals: a communications and analytics platform used across Wall Street. In the interview, the hosts cite roughly 500,000 terminal users paying about $25,000 a year and more than 2,000 editors and reporters. Those figures are presented by the speakers, but they explain the business model they want to examine: Bloomberg’s newsroom operates alongside a large subscription technology business rather than relying mainly on advertising.

Alex says the terminal business supports the reporting operation and makes Bloomberg a more financially secure employer than advertising-dependent competitors. His own role is valuable to that core business when M&A reporting moves markets and gives traders a reason to buy a terminal. A story about a company entering acquisition talks can move the shares and bonds of both companies, turning journalism into a time-sensitive input for financial decisions. The episode therefore describes Bloomberg’s reporting as part of the product, not just an adjacent media brand.

Terminal subscribers receive news 15 minutes before the wider public, which Alex describes as a built-in paywall. Bloomberg has used large scoops to demonstrate the value of that lead, including claims that a deal announcement created billions of dollars in market value. But social media and Bloomberg TV have eroded the delay: once a headline appears, it can spread almost immediately, including through terminal users who post it on Twitter. Alex says the 15-minute advantage remains under internal review, yet Bloomberg has kept it because even a tiny lead can matter in algorithmic trading. The value is therefore less about owning a long period of exclusivity and more about publishing first.