Bloomberg Businessweek has traditionally been one of the Big 3 business publications, along with Forbes and Fortune. But Paul Bascobert, president of Bloomberg Businessweek and head of business operations for the Bloom-berg Media Group, sees a different main competitor for the publication these days.

"I think we're very much focused on Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal in terms of our competitive set," Bascobert, a former Dow Jones executive, said. "The other magazines have really pulled back in terms of frequency."

Bascobert sees the focus of Bloomberg Businessweek (and the entire Bloomberg brand) on business news as a strength that, he says, the Journal no longer has. Pointing to the debut of the Journal's "Greater New York" section, he said, "They put a little less emphasis on their core business news than they have in the past."

With BusinessWeek bleeding ad pages when Bloomberg acquired it in December 2009, challenging the Journal seemed farfetched. But backed by Bloomberg's more than 2,000 journalists in 75 countries, Bloom-berg Businessweek has been reinvigorated.

In addition to relying on Bloomberg's deep pool of journalists, Bloomberg Businessweek can also tap into the company's rich trove of financial data. "The starting point of the relaunch was let's rethink the business magazine," Bascobert said. "We really meant that."

	No. 3 Bloomberg Businessweek/ Businessweek.com Phone: (212) 318-2000 URL: www.businessweek.com Circulation: 923,457*** Traffic: 9.4 million UMV††††† Ad revenue (print): $173 million* Ad revenue (online): N/A Ad rate (print): $139,500 for 1 page 4/C Ad rate (online): $18 to $231 CPM
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"I love what they've done," said Ted Kohnen, VP-interactive marketing at advertising agency Stein Rogan+Partners. "I like what they've done with the print version as well as with the new iPad [version]. The richness of the print version right now is fantastic."

With enthusiastic support from media strategists, Bloomberg Businessweek experienced moderate growth last year, but that growth exploded in the first quarter of this year, when the magazine's ad pages increased 49% compared with the first quarter of 2010, according to Publishers Information Bureau figures.

Bascobert gives Publisher Hugh Wiley a lot of credit for the ad sales turnaround. "Hugh Wiley has been a game changer. He is the right guy at the right time," Bascobert said, adding: "The fact that he came from Fortune (where he was also publisher) was a huge vote of confidence."

The integration opportunities also appear to have helped Bloomberg Businessweek, which is part of Bascobert's Bloomberg Media Group. The group also includes Bloomberg Markets, Bloomberg Mobile, Bloomberg.net, Bloomberg Radio and Bloomberg TV.

"The Bloomberg association is a positive one," said Audrey Siegel, president-director of client services at media agency TargetCast tcm. —S.C.