Interview To Dow Jones :: essays research papers

Interview to Dow Jones Q. What is the biggest challenge facing Dow Jones in the next few years? A. To continue investing in new products and services that will strengthen our franchises, increase our competitiveness and produce new revenue flows in the future, while at the same time being careful in setting priorities, prudent in controlling costs, and committed to producing strong annual profits. Q. Who are the major competitors of Dow Jones? A. In the broadest sense, any quality products or services that compete for the time and attention of busy businesspeople compete with Dow Jones. More specifically, we have some franchises such as The Wall Street Journal that are dominant in their fields. In other cases, we face particular competitors; Dow Jones Telerate, for example, competes with Reuters in offering real-time financial information around the world. We believe, however, that Dow Jones is a unique company in a number of important respects. Our businesses are balanced roughly 50-50 between print and electronic information. More than 40% of our operating profit is now earned outside the U.S. We are a focused company. We are not a media conglomerate, nor an entertainment company. We stick to our business of business, providing information essential to an ever expanding and increasingly interconnected worldwide business community. Q. What is the strategy behind your television operations? A. Dow Jones aims to provide business news in any form customers want it. When we looked at our operations a few years ago, television was the missing means of delivery for our business news. We began by pioneering with Asia's first business channel, Asia Business News, in late 1993 and followed with Europe's first business channel, European Business News, in early 1995. Both have achieved significant distribution success and viewer acceptance. Both also take advantage of Dow Jones' existing news flows and news talent in those regions. When we launch WBIS+ in New York later this year, we will begin daily business programming in the U.S., thus adding the third component of a global business network. The ITT sports programming will help to draw even larger audiences. Q. What is the profile of a typical Wall Street Journal reader? A. The typical reader of the Journal spends 49 minutes every business day with the newspaper. He or she might be a senior executive of a large corporation or the entrepreneur-owner of a smaller company. The reader is more likely to live in California than New York, has a median age of 46 and a median household income of $117,900. Interestingly, most of the customers registering for the Journal's Internet service are not current Journal readers.