‘Wall Street Week’ Becomes Weekly TV Newsmagazine in Bloomberg Overhaul

variety.com:

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor “Wall Street Week,” the venerable program that has been around in one form or another since 1970, is moving beyond its usual focus on the ups and downs of the stock market.

The program, which was originally produced by Maryland Public Television and hosted by Louis Rukeyser, has long focused on interviews with prominent Wall Streeters.

Starting Friday, September 20, the show will instead feature a series of enterprise stories drawn from the reporting of the journalism of Bloomberg, which currently produces the show and has aired it on its cable network and other properties since 2020. “We thought we’d turn it from being interview-driven to being story-driven, more like a traditional newsmagazine,” says David Westin, the show’s host and a former president of ABC News, during a recent interview.

A “60 Minutes” that specializes in business and economics? “I’ve asked around about it,” says Westin. “I’m not sure it has ever been done before.” Rukeyser might devise a clever opening soliloquy to explain why Bloomberg is making such a move, but, simply put, the company, like other broadcasters, has to make radical updates to old formats if it is to keep its content in front of the eyes of younger generations more accustomed to streaming video at a moment’s notice than tuning to a show at a prescribed day and time. “We are making a very concerted effort to make sure we are not just linear TV,” says Westin. “When you go to streaming, it lives forever, and you need to have content that lasts for a long time.” Not only does a focus on the gyrations of the stock market make such a program less relevant over time, he adds, but many of the show’s viewers are “sophisticated investors” who can easily.