We want businesses in India to come to us to tell their story: Andrew Lack

Interview with Chairman, Bloomberg Media Group

Bloomberg, one of the largest suppliers of financial information, reaches about 30 million homes in India. Vanita Kohli-Khandekar spoke to Andrew Lack, chairman, Bloomberg Media Group, a day before the Ficci Frames conference. Edited excerpts:

The market for financial media in India is chaotic, fragmented and small. What's your experience been in the past years?

If you are in the English language news business, I cannot imagine not being in India. It was the first choice on our list of countries to be in. It (India) is not a crowded market. It is because there is so much happening here - there is entrepreneurial spirit in India. The power of entrepreneurship is right up against you - making money, how to do it, what is the product, what are its costs, etc, etc - that is life at the street level. So, if you are in the business of business news, you have to be in India. So far, we are happy with the India story.
 

Bloomberg TV has the greatest engagement with its audience among all channels. India is also a great pool of talent for us - Harsha (Subramaniam) is our star anchor here and he connects with other anchors across the world on some of our shows such as Technology West.

The three big learnings and challenges of the India market?

You need patience, patience and patience.

Your plans for the India market?

Currently, we have a sense of having checked all the boxes. We have finally a profile, the right line-up of programming, social engagement and are leveraging the terminal business. By next year, we would like to see Bloomberg engage more actively with more and more sectors; automotive, for instance. We want to be important to businesses in India, to be the place they come to tell their stories and not just on TV but across formats.

The global business executive, from any level, should check us out before they travel.

There is a list of companies that everyone is hungry about - Apple, Facebook, Twitter or Microsoft, among others. We want to be the place they come to for more information, analysis, context on the companies they want to know about.