Next's marketing and sales director, Stephanie Chang, says contrary to perception, the title has little in common with Taiwan's gossip magazines, which deliver a mix of entertainment, business, society and occasional scandals.
Next treads the same turf, but does so with a harder edge. Ironically, many of the stories it breaks are known to the local news media which prefer to leave these 'gungkai de mimi' - or open secrets - untouched.
"We back our reports with Western-style investigative techniques, relying on an editorial staff of 200, more than double that of our nearest rival,
says Chang. Paparazzi style journalism requires deep pockets, and matching Next's is a challenge to most competitors.
Even worse, in an industry rife with bogus circulation claims, Next has opened its books to the Audit Bureau of Circulation, making it the only publication currently being audited. Says an ABC researcher: "Three years ago, we audited eight publications but they dropped out when their circulation fell as the economy weakened.
According to ABC, Next's circulation for its first 42 issues averaged 191,928 copies, 2.3 times the claimed circulation - 80,000 is the number often bandied about - of Taiwan's other gossip titles.
Its hefty circulation owes as much to its distribution method as its headline-grabbing editorial.
As it set out to become Taiwan's largest-circulating title, NextMedia studiously avoided repeating the mistakes of others. It opted to rely on newsstand sales instead of subscriptions. Virtually all of Next's circulation comes from newsstands, the first tier being convenience stores. Next has been tailored to fit this shopping environment as an impulse buy. That meant opting for an A4 size suited for placement on the counter next to the cash register. Next is on the counters of 6,000 convenience stores.
On top of that, there are bookstores and other stores, giving its 14,000 points of sale islandwide.
Less easy to gauge is its performance as an ad medium especially after the Taiwan Advertisers' Association called for a boycott of the magazine.
What effect has the call had? Not an easy one to answer. Unlike its competitors, Next wasn't monitored for adspend in 2001 by Rainmaker Industrial, which require titles to be up running for a year on January 1 to be included.
As a rough measure, Next launched at a combined 386 pages (A & B books) and was at 248 pages for its March 21, 2002 issue. That's not much of a dip, considering the slump the publishing industry is in. "Most of our income has come from magazine sales, but we expect to push advertising from 20 per cent to 50 per cent of total revenue by June,
says Chang.
The economy being as it is, that might not be easy. But NextMedia insists it has long-term plans. It has purchased a large tract of land for a printing facility for the launch of a Taiwan edition of Apple Daily in late 2004. That's perhaps just enough time for Taiwan's publishing industry to adjust to NextMedia and its owner, Jimmy Lai's style of journalism.
