Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai (黎智英) is negotiating to buy the China Times Group, a newspaper report said yesterday.
There are three parties interested in buying the loss-making group, but Lai’s Next Media Group is seen as the likely winner because it is willing to accept a package sale, while the other two bidders only want to buy the two profit-making TV stations, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News said.
The takeover talks are near completion and Next Media is expected to announce the takeover early next month, the story quoted unnamed industry sources as saying.
Both Next Media and the China Times Group refused to comment on the story.
If the takeover were to materialize, it would make Next Media the largest media group in Taiwan with two TV stations, two magazines and four newspapers.
Lai — vowing to change the reading habits of people by promoting “serious” news reports — launched the Taiwanese versions of his Hong Kong publications Next Magazine and the Apple Daily in May 2003.
Although criticized by many as full of gossip, the Apple Daily quickly became a bestselling newspaper in Taiwan. Its daily circulation has reached 526,000 and it now threatens the market share of other dailies.
Next Magazine, with a scoop in practically every issue, has become the nation’s most popular news magazine.
The Chinese-language China Times was launched in 1950 and later expanded to become the largest media group but is now facing financial difficulties.
The group owns the China Times, the Commercial Times, the China Times Publishing Co, the China Television Co and CTI TV.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
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