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Asia Buzz: You've Got Mail
Hong Kong has a new tabloid--let the sparks fly
By NICK PAPADOPOULOS
May
31, 2000
Web posted at 5:00 p.m. Hong Kong time, 5:00 a.m. EDT
Take one newly launched, tabloid-sized newspaper. Add a nightclub, loud music,
finger food and a smattering of ad and media types. For good measure, throw in a woman dressed in futuristic garb, armed with a power sander and an object
suspiciously resembling a dildo. A black dildo at that.
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 ASIAWEEK
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Welcome to the official launch of Hong Kong's newest English-language
daily newspaper, the strangely named iMail, where sparks flew--literally.
"We tell readers not just what is happening, but why it is happening,"
boasts the newspaper's website (www.hk-imail.com).
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The bash took place on Monday night, in JJ's at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, hours
after the first issue hit the newstands (despite some initial printing and
distribution problems). The night was a success, as far as launches go, but the
night's entertainment left many, ahem, puzzled. What did a woman dressed like
the future, gyrating like a Tokyo go-go girl and power sanding her backside,
breast and, frontside, sending sparks flying into the amused and astonished
crowd, have to do with a new newspaper? "It's different, and we're different,"
was the only sensible reply I could get from one senior insider. In any case,
she gave the emcee--humorist, iMail staffer and Hong Kong identity Nury
Vittachi--a run for his money.
Bankrolled by Patrick Cheung, the chairman of Sing Tao Holdings, iMail has
stepped into the shoes of the struggling and scandal-plagued Hong Kong Standard,
which died a quiet death on May 27, aged 51. [Last year, several Standard
executives went to jail for printing, and then destroying, thousands of copies
to boost circulation claims; only a special pardon kept former owner Sally Aw,
one of the richest women in Asia, out of trouble.]
Dismissing the notion that the Standard has simply "relaunched", the publishers
are at pains to stress the paper is completely new--with a new look, mostly new
staff, a new identity and a new attitude. A paper that will "present the inside
story of Hong Kong in a crisp and lively fashion." The "I" in iMail, if you're
wondering, stands for interactive (the paper will provide handy links to its
website), interesting, informative, international, Internet ... and you get the
drift.
The daily, to be published from Monday to Saturday, is aimed at a young,
predominantly Chinese readership. Or as the new untested editor Andrew Lynch [he
was poached from the Post where he was deputy night editor] puts it, the "ABCs,
BBCs and CBCs" [American-born Chinese, British-born Chinese and Canadian-born
Chinese] aged 20-40.
The publishers agree the paper is a huge gamble, not to mention a costly one.
Staff are still being hired, and the paper's closest rival, The South China
Morning Post, which recently underwent a colorful redesign, clearly dominates
the market, though there is much room for improvement.
Size, despite what people say, is an issue. And iMail is counting on it becoming
a big issue in this newspaper war. Images of frazzled commuters on the MTR
grappling with the broadsheet Post featured heavily in a promotional video shown
to the 400-odd invited guests at the launch. [Many broadsheet newspapers around
the world have at some stage or another considered changing to tabloid format--
though not to tabloid content--in a bid to win over train commuters with little
room for arm twisting and paper folding.]
And so, Hong Kong's newspaper war has begun. May the best paper win--and let the
sparks fly.
Ticked off at Asia Buzz? Turned on? Talk back to TIME
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