FEATURES: Regional publications cautious over 2001 prospects

Regional publications are cautiously optimistic about their prospects for 2001 despite seeing their advertising revenue surge 22 per cent last year. This followed a rise of just three percentage points the year before, according to CMR International, indicating the industry has rebounded strongly from the economic turmoil of the late 1990s. Factors weighing heavily on the minds of publications include worries about the US economy as well as political uncertainty in a number of major Asia-Pacific markets. But despite the cautiousness, many publications have reported strong starts to the year. Newsweek Asia advertising director Theresa Yeung described the first two months of the year as "not bad". But while some publishers are bracing themselves against the worst case scenario, most have adopted a wait-and-see attitude. "This year, the jury is still out with a lot of people predicting a boring year. It could go either way but if the US picks up in the second or third quarter that will be a good sign," said Asiaweek president Peter Brack. Last year, of the top 18 regional magazines and newspapers, 12 posted double-digit growth rates of between 11 and 52 per cent. Forbes Global scored the biggest increase, however, being still relatively new in Asia, the growth has come off a small, albeit, fast-growing base. However, the International Herald Tribune and Reader's Digest experienced significant declines of 6.8 and 19.3 per cent respectively. IHT Asia-Pacific advertising director Jonathan Kenny said that the CMR report should only be taken as a rough guide because it does not take into account discounts. "There was a lot of discounting in 1999 but we stopped that last year and instead offered things like event sponsorships and the like as added value. So actually, we weren't down, we were up 10 per cent," he said. Technology, telecommunications and dotcoms helped fuel the rebound in 2000. For this year, technology and telecoms are expected to be big spenders with travel and lifestyle and corporate advertisers replacing the dotcoms. Time, meanwhile, continued to top the revenue chart with USdollars 64.8 million, up 31 per cent from the year before. Asian Wall Street Journal was not far behind at USdollars 63.2 million, almost 38 per cent higher compared with 1999. Newsweek held third spot with an advertising revenue of USdollars 43.8 million, more than 34 per cent up year on year. CMR International Report Advertising Revenue (USdollars '000) Publication 2000 1999 % Change Time Asia 64,826,301 49,438,784 31.1 Asian Wall Street Journal 63,274,721 45,991,443 37.6 Newsweek Asia 43,764,580 32,534,371 34.5 Asiaweek 30,205,870 27,107,492 11.4 BusinessWeek 24,870,353 19,937,991 24.7 International Herald Tribune 22,514,758 24,165,204 -6.8 Far Eastern Economic Review 21,900,005 15,470,797 41.6 Fortune 19,163,750 15,254,058 25.6 Economist 17,005,575 14,031,292 21.2 Reader's Digest Asia 10,531,653 13,055,271 -19.3 Yazhou Zhoukan 9,961,424 9,518,108 4.7 Financial Times 9,533,092 7,141,726 33.5 USA Today 5,802,016 5,603,961 3.5 Fortune China 5,328,584 3,616,879 47.3 Forbes Global 5,233,114 3,433,783 52.4 Asiamoney 3,933,514 5,156,816 -23.7 National Geographic 2,647,175 2,353,690 12.5 Business Traveller 1,639,255 1,956,725 -16.2 Total 362,135,740 295,768,391 22.4 Produced by CMR International.

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