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File:HeadlineDailyAd.jpg
An on-wall advertisement for Headline Daily in a subway.

Headline Daily (Traditional Chinese/TC: 頭條日報) was launched on July 12, 2005 by Sing Tao Newspaper Group Limited. It is the second free Chinese newspaper published officially in Hong Kong, following Metropolis Daily (TC: 都市日報). The paper is only distributed on weekdays and its main target readers are the working class. As for readership, the estimated average daily circulation of the paper is around 500,000 (updated on 13/9/05 at Yahoo! HONG KONG). Like most papers, in addition to local and international headlines, the newspaper also provides news on business, entertainment, lifestyle and sports.


Reasons for the launch of the newspaper

According to the Chairman of Sing Tao News Corporation Charles Ho Tsu-Kwok, there was still a lot of room for the development of free newspapers, in terms of content, distribution network and advertising formats, in Hong Kong. The pace in Hong Kong is so fast and people are so busy, Headline Daily was established to meet the needs of Hong Kong people, by providing them with first-hand information on the hottest daily topics in a manner as concise and lively as possible, with the attempt to portray a "positive" and "lively" image among readers.

In terms of market competition, the Headline Daily was also launched in a bid to gain a greater market share of the territory's advertising market and to explore a new source of income for the corporation.

Daily distribution

Daily issues are distributed during morning peak hours from Monday to Friday, except on public holidays. It is distributed in more than 600 different places, among which there are now three fixed distribution media: McDonald's restaurants, KCR stations (except Tsim Sha Tsui East, Tai Wai, Racecourse and Sheung Shui Stations), and nearly 500 residential estates. Moreover, the papers are distributed at more than 100 fixed or non-fixed spots, which include commercial buildings, bus/mini-bus stops, shopping malls, etc, all around Hong Kong. Readers may simply get a free issue from the eye-catching red shelfs at most spots, or from the staff at certain spots.

Readership

The newspaper targets on the working population, who are usually too busy to go through a large amount of pages nor even go through every piece of news in detail. However, these people are likely to grasp every chance to read newspapers when travelling or having breakfast.

In August 2005, a research firm from the market research company, Synovate conducted a survey, which compares the readership of 3 free newspapers in Hong Kong. The result shows that in the first three weeks of August, Metropolis Daily, Headline Daily and am730 respectively achieved 16%, 18% and 8% of the market shares. Headline Daily gains the leading readership of 893,000, compared with Metropolis Daily's 820,000 and am730's 401,000. (view the detail of the survey)

Contents

"Headline Daily" shares news sources with Sing Tao Daily. The paper aims to present the most important news of the day in a concise way so as to provide readers with up-to-date yet comprehensive news and information on different areas within a short read. It usually has around 24 to 30 pages and has a layout similar to the following formats:


  • Headlines (i.e. coverpage; with daily information such as Marksix Result, Activities of the Day, Lunar Calendar and Weather Forecast)
  • Local news (with critics)
  • National news
  • International news
  • Financial news (i.e. news on Real Estate, Business and Stock Market)
  • Sports news
  • Lifestyle (different topics for each day: Technology(Monday), Fashion(Tuesday), Shopping(Wednesday), Amusement(Thursay) and Food(Friday))
  • Entertainment (local and international entertainment news, along with Television Programme Schedule)
  • The remaining pages are meant for advertisements.


In a comment by Sing Tao chief executive Lo Wing-hung, he claimed that the average pages of Headline Daily could be increased up to 40 pages if its readership could increase significantly in due time. However, so far, more than three months after the first publication, the newspaper still only consists of around 24 pages on the average.

Marketing strategies

As more and more free newspapers are sprouting up to fight for a room in local newspaper market, Headline Daily distinguishes itself by bringing new experiences to its readers. It tries to be competitive by implementing marketing strategies to attract readers' interest, such as:

  • "apple-shaped pellet": a massage equipment, which working class readers can use to relax themselves and relieve their stress, is once offered to readers along with the newspapers .
  • "happy lucky reader": one reader is randomly-chosen in public areas (e.g. in a MTR train) and awarded HK$500 on a daily basis.

Moreover, to extend the market to overseas, a softcopy version Headline Daily is made accessible on line.

Public relations

In order to build up a good relationship with customers, Headline Daily invites readers to submit news articles for publication in return of rewards, as a sign of its cooperation with the public. According to the official website, readers can be reporters of Headline Daily by handing in any information. While this information should be deemed to be news-worthy, other guidelines are provided on what type of news should be submitted. Particularly, the paper states that it has no interest in collecting any commentaries from the public. Meanwhile, the usage of any materials submitted is solely dependent on the newspaper's discretion. The paper would reward any readers whose materials are published or utilized with a one-time sum of $100; regardless of how many times the paper utilizes these pieces of news.

Controversies raised

Professionalism of the free press

On the first day of its publication, Headline Daily claimed that "Headline news is important news, and different sections of the newspaper should have headlines. Not only the serious news has headlines, but also for entertainment news, let alone love affairs." This statement raises the controversy on whether Headline Daily is making a good journalism, which requires verification and objectivity rather than exaggerating the facts by making them headlines.


Reduction of newspaper hawkers’ income

Two days after the first publication of Headline Daily, Hong Kong Newspaper Hawker Association accused Headline Daily of having an adverse impact on the business of newspaper hawkers. They claimed that the free distribution of Headline Daily had resulted in a general drop in newspaper transaction of around 10% to 20%.

Effect on price and selling of the current newspapers

In addition, Hong Kong Newspaper Hawker Association pointed out that under the current market conditions, it might be infeasible to decrease the prices of the newspapers in order to maintain or increase their sale. Subsequently, they claimed to have considered taking Sing Tao Daily off their shelves in order to counter the threat posed by Headline Daily.

On another front, the vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Newspaper Hawker Association, Lam, gave an example of the impact. Ten years ago, an ice-cutting competition which was initiated by Apple Daily had resulted in the elimination of several old-fashioned newspapers. Drawing a parallel with that phenomenon, Lam speculated that if the current situation of free distribution of newspapers continued, newspapers run by small corporations might eventually be eliminated. This might in turn result in the undesirable situation of reducing choices for newspaper readers.

Three months after the launch of Headline Daily, The Sun Daily was the first newspaper that initiated a price-cutting campaign as a response. On October 19, 2005, The Oriental Daily Group followed suit by cutting down the price of The Sun Daily to 50% from $6 to $3.

After the launch of the two new free papers, Sing Tao Daily's advertising revenue dropped by 12% in August (compared with July). Meanwhile, Ming Pao Daily News and Sing Pao Daily News also suffered from reduction in advertising revenues by 7% and 5% respectively.

Nevertheless, research figures indicates that the majority of free newspapers readers are 'new' readers or readers of both paid and free papers. It concludes that even though the sprouting up of free newspapers seems to have a negative causal effect on single copy sales of paid newspapers, the overall effect on readership and choices of newspapers might not be detrimental.

Also, it is sugguested that readers who buy a paper everyday for its style and reputation are unlikely to change their custom only because of the price. The emergence of free newspaper would only lead to the repositioning or position enhancement of individual newspaper. On the other hand, it is worth pointing out that free newspapers focus on the low-end market while the priced newspapers target the middle-income class and professionals.

An obstacle to human traffic

Hong Kong Newspaper Hawker Association indicated that free distribution of Headline Daily outside MTR stations might affect the smoothness of human flow along the passageways. The Association suggested that Sing Tao News Corporation should improve the method of distribution and requested the government to interfere and deal with the problem seriously.

Environmental problems

Moreover, some critics also think that free distribution may lead to greater wastage of paper. For example, a family with a few sets of free newspapers might end up throwing all of them into the dustbin directly without using them for other purposes as they did not pay for the newspapers. According to Friends of the Earth, on the average, only 32% of newspaper-readers will dump their unwanted newspapers into recycle boxes. Since there are 500,000 issues of Headline Daily published every Monday to Friday, the wastage of paper and disposal problem surely contribute significantly to the worsening of HongKong's pollution.

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