Rolling Stone goes under deeper cover as owners keep low profile

The Chinese edition of US rock rag Rolling Stone will defy all odds and hit the streets on the mainland this week with its second edition - albeit 'under cover'.

In something of a publishing irony, however, the edition will feature a cover story of the real Rolling Stones on tour in China - complete with a picture of the old rockers. But missing from the cover will be the magazine's proper name: Rolling Stone.

Instead, even though part of the content will be drawn from global editions of the ubiquitous music and cultural magazine, the title will be Audio Visual World.

That represents a deeper disguise than the first edition which came out under the name Rolling Stone Audio Visual World - the add-on being the name of the mainland publisher that tied up with One Media Group, the magazine unit of Ming Pao Enterprise Corp, to publish the magazine.

If you're confused, so are we.

The first edition came out last month with a 120,000 print run which quickly sold out, scotching talk from doomsayers that the magazine would never get the green light from China's strait-laced censors.