The Media Industry

It's really an unbelievable time to be working in the media industry. News media has really struggled over the last decade with declining ad revenues and entirely new methods of media consumption. It's been survival of the fittest throughout the industry, as the companies that adapt the fastest win out with emerging trends. In my internship at Thomson Reuters, I feel fortunate to be thrown into the middle of media revolution.

Reuters media, although the most recognized and branded portion of Thomson Reuters' business, actually accounts for a very small portion of the company's overall revenues. However, Reuters media is still a huge brand builder and money-maker for Thomson Reuters. Reuters Media, like the rest of the company, relies mostly on business to business transactions. While there is a Reuters news website that generates significant traffic (although mostly outside the U.S.), Reuters does not compete with media distributors such as the New York Times, Yahoo, CNN, etc., but rather the Associated Press and other content providers. In essence, Reuters creates content through its global, unbiased, journalists stationed worldwide. They then distribute that content, whether it be video, text, pictures, graphics, etc. to the aforementioned consumer focused media companies (NY Times, Wall Street Journal, etc.). While this does allow Reuters to avoid many of the problems plaguing the industry such as declining ad revenue and new platforms, it provides its own set of challenges that I have been working on solving as a Strategy Intern.

Without getting into too much detail, it's an incredibly exciting time to meet these challenges at Reuters. Whether it be adjusting to new ways of consumption (think iPad and beyond), adapting to changing consumer tastes (think twitter, mobile, etc.) or simply just generating more revenue out of existing channels, there is a plethora of change going on in the industry and at Reuters itself.

I look forward to continuing to get my hands dirty and give my best effort to solve some of these issues, anticipate changes, and shape the future of Reuters media.

Alex Weiss (BBA Rising Senior)