PERHAPS IT IS only appropriate that in a country credited by some with the invention of the newspaper 1,000 years ago, newspapers should be enjoying a renaissance. The Chinese Communist Party's well-documented disdain for press freedom notwithstanding, today more than 2,000 daily newspapers are published on the mainland, with new titles appearing on a regular basis.
Paradoxically, the number of independent newspaper titles continues to dwindle in developed Western markets where freedom of the press is a well-established and protected principle - a process driven by the remorseless economic logic of consolidation.
The resurgence of the mainland's newspaper industry has been spurred by both novelty and mammon. As China becomes more open, a population previously starved of information cannot seem to get enough newspapers.
Advertisers, in turn, see newspapers as an ideal medium to reach an increasingly affluent urban audience. Last Friday's edition of Guangzhou's broadsheet New Express News, published on the eve of one of China's three annual 'golden week' holidays, ran to 80 pages, including a special four-section supplement packed with advertising targeting holiday shoppers.
Executives at the Guangzhou Daily, the New Express News' cross-town rival, say their newspaper booked advertising revenues worth 1.4 billion yuan (HK$1.32 billion) last year - accounting for 18 per cent of national advertising income and making it the country's richest paper for the eighth year running.
It is hard to imagine that just 10 years ago most mainland newspapers offered their readers four - or at most eight - black-and-white pages of tepid copy, and depended upon government handouts for their survival. The industry's transformation has arguably been one of China's most spectacular and - ironically - under-reported commercial success stories over the past five years.