Bloomberg to Buy Business Week

Remember when Conan O'Brien used to play If They Mated and create a familiar-looking yet somehow odd offspring from two celebrities? Right about now, employees, subscribers, and observers of BusinessWeek are probably playing the same game as Bloomberg, LP's acquisition of the magazine is made official. On October 6, Paid Content's Rafat Ali probably came the closest when he photoshopped the BW logotype (in diminished scale) beneath the Bloomberg Market's. The result was kinda ugly, but every newborn baby is beautiful in its parents' eyes.

The new baby will have a family name: henceforth, the 80-year-old magazine will be known as Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Instead of gifts, the parents will be asking for gifts in the form of increased subscriptions and ad sales.

"We're buying BusinessWeek to build it," Bloomberg President Daniel Doctoroff told his own company. "Our intention is to take a venerable brand and turn it into the best global business newsweekly."

Speculation has been swirling around BusinessWeek since July, when its owner, McGraw-Hill Cos., the textbook publisher and owner of Standard & Poor's ratings unit, said it was exploring strategic options for the weekly. Advertising sales and circulation had fallen at the magazine.

Advertising revenue at the magazine founded in 1929 fell 32 percent in the first nine months of 2009, to $112.6 million from $164.4 million last year. It lost $43 million last year and had almost $32 million in liabilities as of April 30, the New York Times reports.

Other bidders included private equity firm OpenGate Capital, which bought TV Guide for $1 last year, and Mortimer B. Zuckerman. Both withdrew from the bidding.

Terms of the sale were not announced but Tom Lowry, writing on BW's Fine on Media blog, said Bloomberg's offer might have been between $2 and $5 million.

Norman Pearlstine, Bloomberg's chief content officer, will be chairman of BusinessWeek.

In September, Portfolio.com talked to some BusinessWeek staffers who fretted about a possible sale to Bloomberg: "Everybody knows the kind of Bloomberg borg-like atmosphere," one staffer who chose to remain anonymous said. "But they have money and he's smart and they're growing… Being bought by Bloomberg is a lot better than being shut down."

Now, will Bloomberg take my advice and flip it already? The company has had the title for hours and you know what happens when you drive a new car off the lot.

Reported by Kent Bernhard Jr., Portfolio.com News Editor