The Financial Times (FT) and Time Asia were the big regional winners, while Hong Kong's SCMP Group and Ming Pao Group both triumphed in their respective categories. The FT picked up five awards, including excellence in newspaper design, pipping rival The Wall Street Journal Asia, which received an hounourable mention for its new compact layout. Time Asia picked up four awards.
In the English-language local newspaper and small magazine category, Hong Kong's SCMP Group scooped nine awards, the most of the evening, for its daily and Sunday papers. The Ming Pao Group dominated the Chinese-language category, with six awards for Ming Pao and Ming Pao Weekly, and one for Yazhou Zhoukan, the newsweekly it jointly owns with Tom Group.
SOPA chairman and South China Morning Post MD Nancy Valiente urged titles not to think of digital services as an add-on service. "Every touchpoint is an opportunity to build our brand or devalue it," she said.
Later in the evening, however, the audience revealed its emotional attachment to print, cheering in response to a comment from keynote speaker Anson Chan that she preferred reading newspapers to the internet.
