Hong Kong Standard claims victory

Six months after the Hong Kong Standard decided to go free, the second English language paper in Hong Kong claims victory, reports Thomas Crampton, who listened to a talk by Steve Shellum, executive editor of the paper.

“We had always been number 2 to SCMP in terms of circulation and ad revenue,” Shellum said, speaking to the IFRA Publish Asia conference in Macau today. “Our circulation is now more than double the SCMP and we have attracted a considerable number of new advertisers who pay an increased rate.”

Hong Kong has been a very profitable newspaper market, especially for its market leader South China Morning Post. But profitability has been undercut now Hong Kong companies do no longer have to publish their annual figures in one of the English-langauge papers, but can also do so online since the end of last year.