The uncertain economic outlook has dealt a blow to publishers in Hong Kong and Singapore, although a rebound is on the cards, barring another Sars outbreak.
China appears to be undergoing a shake-up after the Government banned mandatory subscriptions of official dailies by civil servants. However, India looks to be stealing the limelight as newspapers are aggressively marketed like never before.
INDIA
The newspaper industry in India is in a state of flux, with most of the serious action on the vernacular language front, particularly in Hindi.
Officially the national language of India, Hindi is spoken almost exclusively across North Indian states, while even in Punjab, which has its own local language, Hindi publications have made inroads.
In the English-language market, the leader by far is The Times of India, the only publication with a national presence. Its readership is more than double that of the next largest player, The Hindu.
The business publications market is also dominated by the Times Group: The Economic Times, with almost a million readers, is eight times as large as the No. 2, Business Standard.
Some media observers like PRP Nair, senior vice-president, RK Swamy BBDO, believe papers in English have a huge scope for growth if they penetrate smaller cities and towns; it being arguably the most widely-spoken language across all parts of the country.
While Nair believes people are increasingly turning to papers for in-depth analysis, another school of thought points to the fact that the share of print is declining in an otherwise bullish media scenario.
Amit Ray, president of the technical committee of the Media Research Users Council, which conducts the Indian Readership Survey, points out that people in the 12-to-19 age group, "the decision-makers of tomorrow", as he puts it, seem to prefer other media to print.
SINGAPORE
The past year has seen revamps at three Singapore newspapers - Lianhe Zaobao, The Business Times and Sunday Times - and a more flexible attitude towards advertisers at publishing giant Singapore Press Holdings (SPH).
Tabloid-sized Today, known to be flexible with advertisers, gave a spectacular demonstration of this in March this year - first appearing as a broadsheet in a Hewlett-Packard creative buy, and then publishing an upside-down leader on its front page in a Gillette creative buy.
Former monopoly SPH - which publishes freesheet Streats - has loosened up as a result. Tham Khai Wor, SPH executive VP of marketing, said: "With free newspapers, we can be more open and more liberal. With the value that we give to readers, we can be more open to advertisers."
THAILAND
The country's first tabloid newspaper, Bangkok Today hit the newsstands in January, followed by the Post Publishing Group's business paper, Post Today, in February.
Mass circulation daily Thai Rath remains the most popular of the country's 32 Thai-language dailies, followed by Daily News, although the Nation group's Kom Chad Luk, which entered the market two years ago, is gaining impressively in popularity and readership.
JAPAN
Both sales and advertising revenues are in decline. According to Nihon Shimbun Kyokai, overall sales of Japanese newspaper companies in 2002 totaled Y2,397.9 billion (about US$20.4 billion), down 3.7 percent from a year earlier.
Ad revenue plummeted a deep 10.1 percent on a year-on-year comparison.
HONG KONG
Oriental Daily, Apple Daily and The Sun continue to keep their leadership positions in terms of advertising revenue and readership in the city, according to OMD Southern China general manager Ray Wong.
"As the market becomes increasingly competitive and cluttered, newspapers have started providing flexibility in terms of design and page layout to fit the creative requirement of print ads," he said.