One of the oldest regional titles in Asia, the Asian Wall Street Journal, was knocked off track this year when Sars led adsales to plummet and circulation to fall by almost 10 per cent. The AWSJ's circulation in the first six months of this year stood at 76,843 - well down on the same period last year, when at 84,467 it was higher than almost any other time in the past eight years.
But editor Reg Chua says that while the "one-off shock" of Sars led to huge losses in newsstand sales in Hong Kong and Singapore, sales in other markets actually rose. Subscriptions overall rose 7.3 per cent between January and June.
The AWSJ worldwide is building a 'global newsdesk' system, in which senior staff in London, New York, Brussels and Hong Kong work together and can commission writers to write or adapt individual stories for different editions.
"(International stories) will be done better, rather than more," says Chua, promising that local coverage will not be undermined.
Starcom regional media director Sharon Ng says this will fill a clear gap in the AWSJ's package.
"They're expanding their coverage, which is good, because sometimes it seems it's not in-depth enough, but it is improving on that now," she says.
Also, the AWSJ has strengthened its cooperation with Dow Jones Newswires, giving it access to 165 extra reporters in Asia.
The AWSJ has changed the way it presents special supplements; its focus on post-WTO China was presented as a four-part series each Monday in October.
"It's been a tremendous advertising success," says AWSJ advertising director Carla Vogler.
"Advertisers want a relevant news environment and there's huge demand for association with China, not just from Chinese companies but advertisers out of Europe."
Nicole Vooijs, regional business director at ZenithMedia, says such changes are the right way to progress, especially at a time when the main competition - the just-launched Asian edition of the Financial Times - is making plenty of noise.
"A lot of newspapers make the mistake of becoming more generic because they want to attract advertisers from other industries, like fashion or beauty, but I don't think their core readership would appreciate that," she said.
"I think the AWSJ is still in a very strong position, and it's going to be very hard for the FT to break through that."