No interest in buying print media says Tom Glocer

The question was put to the chief executive by correspondent Robert MacMillan, pictured, who covers Thomson Reuters as part of his media beat.

“Covering Thomson Reuters Corp for almost two years has taught me that people like to cast my company in a recurring role in media deal parlor games,” he writes in a Reuters blog. “Now that the company’s arch-rival Bloomberg LP will buy BusinessWeek magazine from McGraw-Hill, lots of my pals in the media world are wondering: Will Thomson Reuters buy a mainstream news or business news magazine? Or newspaper? Why not Forbes? Why not the Financial Times?

“Keep in mind that Thomson Reuters likes to remind people when they ask these questions that Thomson Corp, before buying Reuters, got out of its Canadian newspaper empire for a reason.

“I asked our chief executive, Tom Glocer, a question along these lines on a Thursday phone call he had with reporters to discuss the company’s third-quarter financial results."

Glocer's reply: “Thomson did a remarkable job, far earlier than any other company I know, of seeing what was coming and transitioning their business out of print for the most part… I don’t see any particular time or reason at this juncture why we should go the other way.”

MacMillan returned to the theme when he interviewed Glocer later in the day and used the Financial Times as an example. He got a similarly dismissive response from the CEO.

What about other properties, MacMillan enquired.

"Is it impossible that somewhere in the world that we'd take a print property and move it electronic? No, but we're not looking to go out and buy consumer print publications. That’s not what we think our business is,” Glocer replied.

Robert Daleo, chief financial officer, said Thomson Reuters was a company where “what we shy away from are advertising-based models. We charge for content, we charge for information and news”.

What about reuters.com, an ad-supported site that runs Reuters news? Glocer said: “I would argue that the overwhelming amount of our news is behind the firewall in the sense that you only get it as part of a product that you pay for. It’s great that we have it. I’m very proud of reuters.com. I use it on weekends and evenings when I’m not in front of my bigger service, my subscription service.” ■