The editor-in-chief of the planned Taiwan Apple Daily took a swipe at Taiwan's newspaper industry yesterday, saying his paper will be different from its competitors because it will be tailored toward readers' interests.
"We want to publish a newspaper based on readers' interests," said Chen Yu-hsin (陳裕鑫). "We don't consider any of Taiwan's existing papers, including the China Times and United Daily News as likely competitors, because they don't share this concern."
The two newspapers have the biggest circulations of any of Taiwan's dailies.
The Taiwan Apple Daily will be the second Taiwan-based publication for Hong Kong's Next Media Ltd (壹傳媒集團), which is owned by media tycoon Jimmy Lai (黎智英). Its first foray into the Taiwan market was Next magazine.
In April the company purchased two buildings in the Neihu Phase 6 Light Industrial District for NT$780 million, giving it 1,319 pings for its production plant and offices. It is now recruiting senior staff.
The new paper is scheduled to be launched between April and June of next year.
"The newspaper will be specifically tailored for Taiwan's readers, which means we cannot copy the Hong Kong version too closely," Chen told the Taipei Times.
However, he said a final decision on the paper's format had not yet been made.
Asked whether the newspaper would adopt a sensationalist approach, Chen said, "We will simply reflect reality and avoid sensationalizing the news."
Hong Kong's Apple Daily, with its tabloid diet of sex, scandal, gossip and graphic front-page pictures, has a circulation of about 1.5 million -- making it the second-largest newspaper in the territory.
Chen said the company plans to have the paper's middle-level managers start their jobs by September. They will begin by designing the paper's pages and then go to Hong Kong for training.
He said the company would start to recruit reporters and editors in December, adding that there will be eight to nine deputy editors-in-chief and a total of some 400 to 500 employees.
Chen also confirmed that Hsieh Zhong-liang (
Hsieh is the journalist whose story in Next about the National Security Bureau's secret funds led to the seizure of 160,000 copies of the magazine in March by the Taiwan High Court Prosecutors' Office.
Next Media Ltd announced at the end of last year that it had enough cash to fund its NT$5 billion (US$142 million) three-year plan to bring Hong Kong's second-largest newspaper to Taiwan.
But the paper's launch date has reportedly been pushed back several times as Next continues to struggle to turn a profit in Taiwan's faltering economy.
Sources say Lai expects Next to start showing a profit from September and that is why his company has stepped up its plans for launching the newspaper.
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