Ming Pao turns New York edition into free sheet

Free newspapers are turning into a tool for publishers to gain market share without breaking the bank in an increasingly tough environment.

Hong Kong's Ming Pao Daily News is the latest newspaper group to jump on the 'throwaway' band wagon, turning its New York edition into a free sheet to save costs.

Media Chinese International, the controlling shareholder of Ming Pao, last Friday announced it was closing the loss-making 12-year-old Ming Pao New York Edition and merging it with a free daily called New York Free Newspaper, with effect from February 2.

Before the closure of the New York edition, Ming Pao's management had restructured its five-year-old San Francisco edition as part of a cost-cutting exercise. About 80 staff have been laid off due to the revamp of the US operation, which now consists of only about 20 people.

Meanwhile, it will be business as usual for the company's profit-making Canadian businesses in Toronto and Vancouver.

A company source said the closure of the New York edition could help the operation avoid being pulled into a 'black hole'. The US operations are losing more than HK$10 million a year.

New York Free Newspaper was selected as the vehicle to turn around the troubled US business owing to its flexibility as a business model. 'In the United States, it is quite difficult for us to operate a Chinese-language newspaper, especially in the western part of the US, as Chinese people are dispersed in many places,' the source said.