Sing Tao News Corp will turn its English-language publication Standard into a free newspaper on Monday as it attempts to reposition the title following the loss of key financial industry advertising.
The publisher of the free Chinese-language newspapers Headline Daily and Express Post as well as the paid broadsheet Sing Tao Daily, forecasts the new Standard will break even on cash flow in 18 months if it faces no direct competitors in the market.
The Standard will boost its daily print run to 120,000 copies from 50,000. The paper will be distributed from Monday to Saturday in business districts including Central, Admiralty, Tsim Sha Tsui and Quarry Bay as well as in airlines and hotels.
The paper has suffered from declining advertising since the stock exchange in June abolished a rule requiring main-board companies to publish paid announcements.
Market sources said the Standard had accounted for over 60 per cent of the paid announcement market.
Nielsen Media figures show that the paper's advertising revenue dropped by 34 per cent in July over the previous month.
'It's an uncharted market,' Sing Tao chairman Charles Ho Tsu-kwok said of the move yesterday. 'We don't know how big the market is but we are forced to change.'