Journal seeks to boost spending in push for bigger market share

The Hong Kong Economic Journal, which doubled first-quarter display advertising revenue at the expense of rival Hong Kong Economic Times, will boost investment to take market share from quality newspapers such as the Economic Times and the Ming Pao Daily News, market sources told Media Eye last week.

The Journal last month took in its highest advertising income since a trust funded by PCCW chairman Richard Li Tzar-kai bought a 50 per cent stake in the Chinese-language financial newspaper in September. The rest is held by founder Lam Shan-muk and family.

The Journal is now exploring ways to maintain its growth momentum in revenue from corporate notices by starting a website on listed companies' data.

The paper was thinking of increasing its spending budget 'and some dailies such as Ming Pao will be the first to get hurt', a source said.

The new owners, who had already expanded the sales and editorial teams, were considering buying a new printer to replace the existing one, which limited the number of colour pages that could be published, another source said.

'When comparing it with other newspapers with big corporate support, we are only a small enterprise and we need to earn as much as we can during the peak season for advertising dollars,' the source said.