Newspapers face survival struggle: Hong Kong media mogul

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2009

HONG KONG (AFP) — One of Asia's leading media moguls, Jimmy Lai, said Wednesday that newspapers faced a tough battle to survive and that providing content on the Internet for free was not a sustainable position.

Lai, who owns the Apple Daily title in Hong Kong and newspapers in Taiwan, said the newspaper industry faced a "problem of survival" as it struggles to attract a new generation of readers used to TV, computer games or the Internet.

He told the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Hong Kong that the industry had to remain "creative" if it wanted to keep its market share.

He also said media companies had to charge for some online content, which is given away for free by many newspapers.

"We have got to charge for something. This is not social work," he...