The future, it appears, is a bleak place for mid-tier newspapers that are neither big, nor free.
While many of Hong Kong’s newspapers are — according to Apple Daily group advertising director Mark Simon - “political mouthpieces supported by tycoons with political ambitions,” the environment is expected to get worse. Simon points out that paper prices are set to grow by up to a quarter this year.
Even in the supposedly healthier newspaper market across the mainland border, titles are struggling.
Shenzhen Metro shut down last year because of spiraling costs. Significantly, in a move that Sing Pao may want to try emulating, rivals Guangzhou Daily and Shenzhen SAR Daily have joined forces to offer advertisers combined rate discounts and attack the dominance of market leader Southern Metropolis Daily.
On the opposite side of the Taiwan Strait, meanwhile, the launch of Apple Daily five years ago has forced two newspapers out of business. The rest of the titles, despite healthy audience demographics, have been caught up in a fierce price war.
In all three markets, a similar dynamic has emerged. While readership is increasing, this has been largely driven by free dailies. For second-tier paid titles, it appears, the writing is on the wall. One newspaper that has made an aggressive attempt to buck this trend, albeit in a market as far afield as Malaysia, is the 112-year-old Malay Mail - which relaunched two years ago, departing from its traditional mature, middle class audience, to try and woo younger readers with a tabloid format.
“But younger readers don’t really just rely on print for news,” points out a source. “In this process they are not only losing their loyal readers, but also not gaining many new readers.”
Instead, some observers believe that the time is ripe for more consolidation in Asia’s mature newspaper markets. In theory at least, the conditions seem ideal. “The media industry in Asia is a very localised industry and often has business interests in other industries,” explains ABN Amro executive director and co-head of TMT Asia-Pacific, Sander Hamersma. “Looking at the deals that have closed in the last 10 years, they were mainly emotional talk. The number of actual deals is very small.”
Complicating matters further are local market factors. In China, says China Daily deputy MD Ray Zhou, M&A remains highly regulated. “It’s not easy to merge or acquisition any newspapers without getting approval,” says Zhou. “It’s a rather time-consuming process.”
Which perhaps leaves just one option for the mid-level newspapers that are unable to successfully revamp their strategies on the fly. “Possible that many of the weaker newspapers won’t survive this convergence period,” says Time senior editor Jim Erickson. “Companies that can’t create and revamp themselves will be destroyed.”
