UBS and Bloomberg Television are planning a series of joint television broadcasts, highlighting how financial firms are using news outlets to reach potential customers.

For UBS, the series to address «key global challenges» facing the next generation form the cornerstone of a larger partnership with the media company, focused on «examining trends and shedding light on global events that will help shape the world tomorrow,» «TVB Europe» reported.

The move illustrates how news agencies are seeking new revenue streams to offset a drop in so-called «screen», or trading, clients, who are typically getting their news from a variety of sources other than traditional business news services like «Reuters», «Dow Jones Newswires», or «Bloomberg».

Advertising vs News Content

Bloomberg regularly runs «sponsor content» from clients such as UBS, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Huawei, and Singapore's tourism authority on its newswire.

Earlier this year, «Reuters» began running editorial content on the U.S. presidential election, sponsored by software giant SAP. Each story ran with a disclaimer that while the software giant had sponsored the content, it was nevertheless independently written by Reuters journalists.

Banks' Affinity for Bloomberg

Banks are natural customers for Bloomberg, which sells news aimed squarely at financial market participants like traders and portfolio managers. Merrill Lynch had a 30 percent stake in the financial terminal company in its early years, but sold it for $4.5 billion during the 2008-09 financial crisis.

«Forward Thinking» is the title of a six-part series by UBS and Bloomberg that will explore artificial intelligence, urbanization, inequality, the demographic time bomb, gender equality and sustainability.

Critical Issues

«These critical global issues are right at the forefront of UBS’s agenda, as well as our own, and we are very proud of the series our editorial team have created,» said Penny Bartram (pictured above), head of Bloomberg Marketing, EMEA. «By using the raft of data, content expertise and insights available throughout Bloomberg’s portfolio, it’s a great example of how we build truly powerful opportunities with commercial partners, aligning them to the issues that matter to them.»