Guangdong Province, a reform pioneer in south China, has once again taken the lead in press reform, one of the most sensitive fields in the country, by setting up a number of large newspaper conglomerates.
China’s press, which is gradually veering from its sole function of being only the mouthpiece of the government at different levels, has witnessed a fast, market-oriented development in the country’s developed coastal areas including Guangdong.
Among all the local efforts to turn press into a lucrative business, Guangzhou Daily has proved to be a big success.
In January 1996, the newspaper, which is based in the provincial capital, Guangzhou, formed the first press group in the province. Since then, the paper has increased its daily pages from four to 48 to even 200 pages sometimes, so as to meet the market demands. It now enjoys 1.5 million copies in circulation, compared with the previous 480,000.
Currently, the conglomerate boasts 4 billion yuan in fixed assets and an annual advertisement revenue of 1 billion yuan, ranking first among all domestic competitors. The newspaper, a former recipient of government subsidies, has become the second biggest taxpayer in the province.
Li Yuanjiang, president of the group, said that they have found their own way to develop the business in accordance with the government policies that encourage local media to compete in the market.
He attributed the progress to the ongoing market-led reforms. Under the former planned economy, local media merely relied on subscriptions at public expense and were lack of competing abilities, he noted.
Nowadays, Guangdong ranks first in the number of press groups which also include other conglomerates like Yangcheng Wanbao and the Nanfang Daily. These groups, which are expanding their business by merging smaller competitors. The Nanfang Daily now publishes six newspapers and one magazine; Guangzhou Daily has 14 newspapers and 5 periodicals; and Yangcheng Wanbao owns seven newspapers.
All of them have given up the decades-old mode of distribution, under which the post was the only distributor of papers, and established their own distribution networks. Meanwhile, they are upgrading their services and equipment by adopting electronic means and taking to the Internet.
Last year, Yangcheng Wanbao made its way into the international market by selling 70 percent of its stocks in exchange for HK$236 million property of TOM.COM, a well-known Hong Kong-based Internet company.
(People’s Daily 04/05/2001)
