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Free Paper: Is it the way out?

The Young Reporter (2009, October), 42(01), pp. 13.
Author: Bonnie Fung, Pearl Liu, Maggie Tam. Editor: Luna Lau, Yvonne Lou, Jade Shen.
Permanent URL - https://sys01.lib.hkbu.edu.hk/bujspa/purl.php?&did=bujspa0002364

Bonnie Fung, Pearl Liu and Maggie Tam report.

Circulation of most local traditional newspapers are in recent years on a decline as flourishing free newspapers, as new means of news dissemination, are threatening their survival, thus prompting some established traditional publishers in town to step up their game.

According to the Hong Kong Audit Bureau of Circulations, the circulation of many traditional broadsheets in 2008 had decreased when compared to the number in 2002.

Local English newspaper publisher South China Morning Post [SCMP] suffered a drop in circulation by nine per cent while Chinese newspapers such as Apple Daily and Ming Pao have undergone sales drop respectively by 15 and 13 per cent over these six years.

On the contrary, the circulation of free, tabloid-sized newspapers such as Metro, Headline Daily and am 730 went up in various degrees. Among those, the circulation of Headline Daily showed the greatest increment, by 39 per cent from 2005.

Mr Lo Wing-hung, Chief Executive Officer of Sing Tao News Corporation Limited, started to realize the threat free newspapers and online news websites had been bringing to traditional charged newspapers in the United States and many European countries years ago. For Hong Kong, he foresaw the same challenge was coming soon.

“In view of that, our news group carried out two main reforms about four years ago. We toned up the quality of Sing Tao Daily while creating a brand new product-free newspapers,” said Mr Lo.

Sing Tao Newspaper Group Limited is the first local news group to publish both charged and free newspapers, with Sing Tao Daily being the former, The Standard and Headline Daily being the latter. They offer free news feed available online to websites such as yahoo.com.hk.

Securing a share of the news market is challenging in hard times. SCMP faced its first deficit in the first half of 2009 since the SARS period in 2003.

Mr Lo explained, “English paper [SCMP] used to dominate the market of English newspapers in Hong Kong. But soon after The Standard became a free newspaper in 2007, the situation changed.”

Ms Bonnie Chen, a senior reporter at The Standard, does not think that SCMP’s deficit is directly related to the increasing circulation of The Standard as they target different readers.

“Our competitor [SCMP] is a broadsheet while The Standard is more like a tabloid,” said Ms Chen.

She considered the content of The Standard and other free newspapers relatively more reader-friendly and intriguing while traditional broadsheets target professionals, businessmen and also people from the middle class.

“Busy citizens today do not have much time and patience for long and in-depth reading since it is too convenient for them to know about the world by searching information themselves from many other sources. From papers, they just need the essence of news,” said Mr Lau Kwok-yip, Assistant Chief Editor of Headline Daily.

Perhaps all boils down to a point Lau raised as well - “everyone loves something free.”

With such competitions in sight, Mr Lau believed every traditional charged newspaper now also needs a distinctive characteristic to survive. For example, Sing Tao Daily specialises in education, financial and property news.

“I’m not worried that the success of Headline Daily would swallow up Sing Tao Daily because their orientations are different. Sing Tao Daily is a quality paper while Headline Daily is a mass paper,” said Mr Lo.

He added that Sing Tao Daily has its way out despite the challenges as the circulation of their charged newspaper has still been increasing in recent years, which is a rare case among all charged newspapers.

EDITED BY LUNA LAU, YVONNE LOU, JADE SHEN

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