HEADLINES: Lai plans media empire expansion into Taiwan

Hong Kong media magnate Jimmy Lai is understood to be attempting to expand his media business into Taiwan. A one-year-old evening newspaper, Power News, is among the titles the Next Media Group has approached in Taiwan, where there is no investment restrictions on foreign involvement in the print industry. Targeting young affluent metropolitan readers, Power News took on a non-conventional newspaper format with focus on graphics, colour photos and human interest stories, and it carries no editorial commentary. Power News managing director Alec Lu told MEDIA that executives from the Next Media Group have begun discussions on a potential business alliance. It is understood that Next Media Group has also talked to other media companies. Next Media Group declined to comment on possible investments in Taiwan, and an executive said the group was unable to announce anything at the moment as nothing concrete has come up yet. The speculations come amid reports that Mr Lai is relocating to Taiwan to spearhead the launch of a new title in the island. Mergers tend to be a common and natural move in the media world, and Mr Lu said that he did not rule out a potential business alliance in the future. Power News is owned by multimedia company Power Network which is also involved in cable TV, radio and the Internet. Power Radio, Power TV, Power Links, Power Kids and Power 168 are among the media assets owned by Power Network in Taiwan. Next Media group was not the only media company which has approached the Power group, as Mr Lu said other foreign parties have, on and off, showed interest in forging an alliance of one type or another. Power Network's ultimate goal is to develop a multimedia platform which will integrate the group's media assets to offer audiences 24 hours news information. With a daily print run of up to 350,000 copies, Power News was described as the Taiwanese Apple Daily when it rolled out a year ago. Power News did take Apple Daily as a reference for new ideas, and Mr Lu said that the paper aimed to give readers something fresh. "The biggest change in our media scene came from the TV sector. "But newspapers have remained largely unchanged which is the opposite to Hong Kong's media development," said Mr Lu. "We wanted to give readers something they couldn't currently get from traditional newspapers here," added Mr Lu. Power News has set a new precedent. Other newspaper titles have followed its trend by increasing the number of colour pages. But as a new title in the market, Mr Lu admitted the paper is still losing money, and he expected it would break even in three years. Currently with 306 staff, Mr Lu said Power News had no plans to trim overhead costs. It has, in fact, done the opposite by hiring another 40 people for its financial news website.

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