Bloomberg to launch new entertainment vertical

Bloomberg is launching a new entertainment-focused vertical called "Screentime," the company will announce on Tuesday.

Why it matters: Analysts expect that the global on-demand video market could reach around $100 billion in the next few years.

• "It's an interesting time for Bloomberg to come in and capture this moment in the right way," says Crayton Harrison, managing editor of company's news coverage in the Americas. "We've reached a maturation phase in the industry."
• "Our core mission is to chronicle capitalism, as our chief likes to say. There's going to be a lot of capitalism in this industry — more deals, more money changing hands, and we think we have new perspective to bring to this."

Details: Screentime will launch with several new products that will be anchored by Bloomberg talent across the U.S., Asia, and Europe, including:

• A weekly entertainment newsletter, authored by media and entertainment reporter Lucas Shaw, that builds off of his current "Hollywood Torrent" newsletter.
• A new "Pop Star Power Ranking," which lists the top 25 based on metrics from album sales to social media fandom.
• A new integration across Bloomberg's Business of Sports podcast and Bloomberg's social channels.

Screentime's coverage will span four main pillars:

1. Television and movies
2. Music and podcasting
3. eSports and video games
4. Influencers

Between the lines: The company has launched a number of new verticals that are similarly structured to Screentime — like "Hyperdrive" for auto and mobility industry, and "Prognosis" for healthcare — to help wrangle its 2,700 person newsroom.

The bottom line: Bloomberg, like other media companies, says its experiencing record readership and engagement amid the coronavirus.

• March 2020 set a traffic record for Bloomberg.com at 100 million monthly unique visitors.
• It also hit record content users on the Bloomberg Terminal, its premium data and breaking news subscription portal.

Go deeper: Kids' daily screen time surges during coronavirus