South China Morning Post

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South China Morning Post
Type Daily newspaper
Format broadsheet
Owner SCMP Group
Founded 1903
Headquarters Hong Kong, China
Website: Official Site

The South China Morning Post, together with its Sunday edition, the Sunday Morning Post, is an English-language newspaper of Hong Kong, with a circulation of 104,000. Published by the SCMP Group, the South China Morning Post has a higher print circulation than its main competitors in Hong Kong, The Standard and the International Herald Tribune.

The editor is CK Lau, who replaced the controversial Mark Clifford after he was ousted in April 2007.[citation needed]

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Broadsheet

South China Morning Post Ltd was founded in 1903. The first edition of the paper published on November 6, 1903. In November 1971, it was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. It was privatised by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation in 1987, and relisted in 1990[citation needed].

Malaysian tycoon Robert Kuok's Kerry Media bought the controlling interest from News Corp in October 1993. His son, Kuok Khoon Ean, took over as chairman at the end of 1997[citation needed].

[edit] Circulation and profitability

The paper has a circulation which has remained relatively constant at 104,000 copies since 2000, but is lower than a decade ago[citation needed]. The average audited circulation for the first half of 2007 stood at 106,054, while its Sunday edition, the Sunday Morning Post has a readership of 80,865. Its readership outside Hong Kong remains at some 6,825 copies for the same period, again, relatively unchanged[1]. It also had the enviable position as the most profitable newspaper in the world on a "per reader" basis, profit declined since peaking in 1997 at HK$805 million[2], yet its growth potential is viewed as being largely dependent on its ability to penetrate the wider Chinese market[3].

The Group reported net profit of HK$338 million for the year 2006 (2005 = HK$246m), the operating profit of HK$419m (2005 = HK$306m) was attributable mainly to the newspaper operation.[4].

The selling price of the paper is HK$7 each from Monday to Saturday, and HK$8 for the Sunday Morning Post. Discounted price is given for students' subscription.

[edit] Format

The printed version of the Post is in a broadsheet format which has the following sections: Main, City, Sport, Business, Classifieds, Property (Wednesday), Racing (Wednesday), Technology (Tuesday), Education (Saturday), STYLE magazine (first Friday of every month); the Sunday edition contains Main, a Review section, a Post Magazine, Racing and "Young Post", targeted at the younger readers.

On March 26, 2007, the post was given a face-lift, with new presentation and fonts[5].

[edit] Online version

Scmp.com is a subscription-only service, which also allows the retrieval of archive articles dating back from 1993. It was launched online in December 1996. On May 30, 2007, scmp.com relaunched with a new look, features, and multimedia content. Headlines and the introduction to stories are now free to view, while the full articles are available to subscribers. Archive photos and articles are available for purchase.

On July 16, 2007, scmp.com launched its first-ever viral video marketing campaign targeting a global audience and highlighting the new multimedia features of the website.

[edit] Editorial

The Kuok family is known to be pro-Beijing, and questions have been raised over its editorial independence.[2] There have been concerns, denied by Kuok, over the departures of several China desk staff in rapid succession since the Kuok takeover, namely 2000-01 editorial pages editor Danny Gittings, Beijing correspondent Jasper Becker, and China pages editor Willy Lam, who departed after his reporting had been publicly criticised by Robert Kuok.[6][7]

Gittings complained that in January 2001 he was ordered not to run extracts of the Tiananmen Papers, but was only allowed to after protesting "strenuously". The editor, however, believed that there had already been sufficient coverage.[8]

At the launch of a joint report published by the Hong Kong Journalists Association and Article 19 in July 2001, the Chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists' Association said: "More and more newspapers self-censor themselves because they are controlled by either a businessman with close ties to Beijing, or part of a large enterprise, which has financial interests over the border."[6]

Mark Clifford, appointed Editor-in-Chief in February 2006, also enjoyed a turbulent 14 months in the job. He was responsible for the high profile dismissal of a number of journalists over an internal prank.

The paper has spawned a satirical website NTSCMP.com (Not the South China Morning Post)

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Audit Report. Hong Kong Audit Bureau of Circulations. Retrieved on 2007-03-21.
  2. ^ a b Smith, Patrick. "Clash of civilizations at Hong Kong newspaper", International Herald Tribune, November 19, 2006. Retrieved on 2007-03-22. 
  3. ^ "Two more top editors leave South China Morning Post", International Herald Tribune, January 29, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-03-21. 
  4. ^ "Ad revenue lifts SCMP profit 37pc", South China Morning Post, March 27, 2007. 
  5. ^ "News Digest", South China Morning Post, March 26, 2007, p. 1. 
  6. ^ a b Freedoms eroded to please Beijing: report, The Standard, July 02, 2001
  7. ^ Vanessa Gould, Nelson Lee & Bryan Lee, SAR defends rights record, The Standard, February 28, 2001
  8. ^ Greg Rushford, Cover Story: Hong Kong at a Crossroads, April 2002

[edit] External links