Bloomberg's first tier of readers are those who subscribe to its terminals.

Judge as of 2019-12-23. True: Bloomberg's own descriptions, or reporting on its business, show that Bloomberg Terminal subscribers are the primary, first-priority audience for Bloomberg News content (for example, news is written first for the terminal, and the terminal is the core revenue base). Mostly true: terminal users are clearly a core audience, but Bloomberg describes its priorities somewhat differently. Mixed: the evidence shows terminal users and web or print readers treated as roughly equal priorities. Mostly false: terminal users are an important audience but plainly not the first tier. False: the evidence shows that terminal subscribers are not a priority audience for Bloomberg's news.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Global Reporting Initiative Media Sector Supplement (Bloomberg 2017 Impact Report) Bloomberg L.P. · 2017

   “This requires focusing our firepower so that terminal users, television viewers, radio listeners and magazine readers get what they want, when they want it.”

2. E2 'The Bloomberg Way': An Inside Look at How the News Organization Covers News Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania (Knowledge@Wharton) · 9 January 2012

   “its readers were financial professionals, investors and traders who leased computer terminals to get second-by-second insights on world markets.”

3. E3 What Makes Mike Bloomberg So Smart? Johns Hopkins Magazine · 1 November 1996

   “His eponymous data terminals, which remain the heart of his business, sit on 62,000 desks.”

4. E4 The Winkler Way—Okay? Columbia Journalism Review · 3 June 2008

   “A lot of people in Indonesia are reading Bloomberg their first read every day.”

Bloomberg's 2017 impact report names terminal users first among the audiences its news operation serves, but it also lists TV viewers, radio listeners and magazine readers without ranking them (E1). Knowledge@Wharton describes Bloomberg News's readers as financial professionals who lease terminals (E2), and a 1996 profile calls the terminals the heart of the business (E3). However, CJR quotes a remark that many people in Indonesia read Bloomberg first each day (E4), and none of the sources explicitly ranks terminal subscribers as the first tier. The evidence shows terminal users are clearly a core audience, but Bloomberg's own description of its priorities is broader, so the claim is mostly true.