Free Standard faces challenge of winning over more advertisers

The city's first free English-language newspaper, Standard, is fine-tuning operations as it celebrates its first month of publication today. One early challenge is the higher costs it faces without circulation revenue.

The Sing Tao News Corp newspaper, which converted to a free title after the compulsory placement of financial notices ended, is still trying to prove itself to advertisers. Some early figures look promising.

Revenue from display advertising - excluding notices and announcements - rose 222 per cent in the first month of its free operation to HK$16 million, data from media firm admanGo shows.

That compares with HK$5.08 million in the previous month. But sources say it is too early to call the relaunch a success.

'The first month cannot be a benchmark,' a source at the newspaper told Media Eye. 'The business model is still developing and we need time to attract more advertisers. The English newspaper market is small.'

He estimated the local English newspaper readership was 250,000 people, of whom 200,000 read the South China Morning Post and the rest the Standard.