Days after rival Now TV snatched away the rights to English Premier League football, Cable TV has launched a print advertising campaign for its biggest draw, its 24-hour news channel. The Premiership is only Cable TV's ninth most popular attraction, according to market research firm Nielsen Media Index. It has 122,000 regular viewers or 2 per cent of the 5.28 million Hongkongers aged 12 to 64. The 24-hour news, on the other hand, has a regular audience of 741,000, 14 per cent of the 12-to-64 market. Nielsen Media says Cable TV's second and third most popular offerings are the Cable Entertainment and Movie 1 channels. 'Where there is news, there is Cable News Channel,' the new print ad says. Yes, and there is also Now TV's 24-hour news channel, run in co-operation with ATV and its round-the-clock local business channel. So Cable TV has every interest in shoring up its biggest earner in case Now TV decides to challenge its dominance of information programming too. Cable TV, a unit of i-Cable Communications, has 770,000 paid subscribers. PCCW's Now TV claims 700,000 subscribers, though not all of them pay for the service. Still, Cable TV is in a dogfight, as its decision to cut its monthly tariff by almost 30 per cent to HK$210 from HK$298 clearly demonstrates. next results pending Next Media, which publishes separate editions of its Next Magazine and Apple Daily in Hong Kong and Taiwan, is scheduled to announce its results for the six months ended September. Analysts see its profit coming in flat at about HK$224 million with the fierce competition in both the Hong Kong daily and weekly markets offsetting growth in Taiwan. The Taiwan Apple Daily's circulation has been edging nearer 700,000, driven, it would seem, by the public's fascination with the corruption scandal surrounding President Chen Shui-bian and his family. Taiwan Apple said its November 4 edition, which splashed the allegations against Mr Chen's wife, sold 679,000 copies, its best sale since its debut in May 2003. Nielsen Media Index said Liberty Times, which backs the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, was the most widely read newspaper on the island in the three months ended September. It was seen daily by 2.81 million people, versus 2.33 million for Apple Daily. Unlike Apple, Liberty Times does not publish audited circulation figures. Analysts are keenly awaiting Nielsen Media's fourth-quarter figures to gauge the market impact of Sharp Daily, the free sheet just launched by Taiwan Apple Daily. Admango to monitor ads Admango, another media research firm, will officially start monitoring the local online advertising market in January. The company says 30 websites will be tracked. The firm made a trial run in August when it tracked Yahoo Hong Kong, Next Media's atnext.com and Ming Pao Enterprise's Mingpao.com. Their ad revenue for the month was HK$74.7 million, HK$12 million and HK$1.5 million respectively, based on published rates which did not include discounts. The trial survey estimated the total market for online advertising at HK$130 million per month or 3 per cent of the total market. That is a revealing total compared with Britain where online advertising commands more than 10 per cent of spending on advertising.
