Free daily is still alive

出自香港新聞網 - 樹仁新傳系學生實習習作

The surviving room of free daily, appeared in Hong Kong few years ago, has always been a suspicious problem among public. However, Mr. Shik Wing Ching, the chairman of AM730, one of the local published free dailies, accompanied with its director, Mr. Danny Fung, and said, “ free newspaper production industry is going to be a prosperous industry in future.” during a seminar at Hong Kong Shue Yan University yesterday

“I am not sure if I am going to invest more in AM 730 or not. Yet, I expect the traditional newspapers are going to be substituted by free newspapers, like AM 730, Metro, Headline Daily and The Standard,” Shik said.

Free daily is providing a rather convenient life for people. ‘It is more popular than the traditional newspapers among the youngsters when we always do some innovations, such as special column on each page and more graphics to attract youngsters’ Shik insisted.

He also commented that there are too many pages on traditional newspapers, which is heavy, wasting papers and losing advertising benefits while free newspapers can reach to the young people who have certain purchasing wills. That’s what opportunity for free newspaper is able to attract more advertisements.

Newspaper should not be just about news; it should provide more news angles to analyze news, academic and educational meanings. ‘It’s not an easy task to getting readers’ support, royalty and feedback.’ the other guest Danny Fung said. For exemples, AM730 creates a column for readers to share, which is the way to strengthen relationship between readers and newspaper.

Towards the end of the seminar, Mr. Shik was being asked if he is willing to invest in another free English newspaper or not. He regarded that the demand for free English newspaper is quite weak ,so that he will not take this decision into account until the day AM 730 could take a leading role in the field comes