English-language Hong Kong newspaper becomes a free-sheet

Buy an ad on DigitalJournal.com

Hong Kong - One of Hong Kong's two English-language daily newspapers is to become a free newspaper from next week, its publishers announced Monday.

The Hong Kong Standard, which currently has a cover price of 6 Hong Kong dollars (76 US cents), will be given away from next Monday in commercial buildings and hotels around the city of 6.9 million.

Around 120,000 copies a day will be given away and no jobs will be axed as a result of the switch by the newspaper, which has a circulation far smaller than that of its long-established rival the South China Morning Post.

Publishers Sing Tao said the decision to become a free-sheet had been taken because of a drop in earnings caused partly by a decision from the Hong Kong stock market to allow companies to post earnings notices online instead of in newspapers.

The Standard was founded in 1949 by tycoon Aw Boon Haw and was a broadsheet until 2000 when it turned tabloid and was briefly re-launched as the Hong Kong iMail before switching back to its name The Standard.

For years, The Standard, owned by the publisher of a successful Chinese-language daily, has struggled to keep up with the century-old South China Morning Post, which sells just over 100,000 copies a day.

In 1996, three executives were arrested and convicted of fraud after anti-corruption investigators found thousands of copies were being dumped to boost flagging circulation figures.