News Agency Wars: the battle between Reuters and Bloomberg

This paper examines the world of financial news agencies during the last two decades of the 20th century and concentrates on the struggle for supremacy between Reuters and Bloomberg, asking how a long-established firm such as Reuters allowed the upstart Bloomberg to usurp it as market leader. The recent history of Reuters and Bloomberg is analysed to provide a context for this competitive struggle, examining the agencies' business affairs, management styles and news services. The paper suggests that a sense of arrogance at Reuters, deriving from a period of sustained market leadership, combined with a conservative management style led it to take its eye off the extrovert Bloomberg.