Oriental Daily was established in 1969. It is one of the two newspapers published by the Oriental Press Group Limited (東方報業集團有限公司).While Oriental Daily targets at a more mature reader group, Sun Daily (太陽報) is more youthful and adventurous.
Oriental Daily is referred by many as tabloid as it focuses more on soft news, i.e., news that edges towards entertainment in its form and content. It also adopts a sensational and critical style to report hard news.
The paper claims to be number 1 in circulation for 27 years since 1976 and that it has a recordhigh readership of 3,111,813. Apple Daily, being the number 2 paper, is its main competitor.
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2 Style and Credibility 3 Internet service 4 Competition and New development 5 Contribution to the society 6 External links |
The newspaper provides various kinds of news everyday, e.g., local, international, financial, real estates, entertainment and sports news. Information like horse-racing, soccer gambling, fashion trends and travel advice are also provided.
In 1977, it is the first local paper to launch a complaint page. These complaints could be against any public agencies including governmental departments and private companies. Readers can phone, fax or even complain through the internet using realtime conference system. If the reporters find the complaints attractive and interesting, they investigate and report them. Newspaper thereafter becomes an influential channel for citizens to express their ideas and articulate their antipathy.
Besides being a channel for readers to articulate their antipathy, the complaint page also reports feedbacks from the complained parties. It thus tries to stay neutral and fair, aiming only to arouse public awareness on social unjust.
The paper is also the first to launch an adult content page. This aroused wild tide of controversy at that time. In the past, there was no control on obscene and indescent articles, the porno page of Oriental Daily thus contained materials that will certainly be considered as category III nowadays.
Oriental Daily is always remembered by its above-mentioned breakthroughs. The present Oriental Daily, though, does not differ greatly from other Chinese papers in terms of content. Facing keen competition, Oriental Daily tries hard to keep up with the city's pace. For instance, new columns like 'new arrivals' postbox' were set up to accommodate mainland readers' needs; new soccer-gambling page with information on betting rates were also launched.
As mentioned in the background section, Oriental Daily is the most circulated newspaper in Hong Kong. However, circulation figures may not be proportional to credibility level. According to surveys on newspapers' credibility (figure 1), Oriental Daily was placed seventh amongst 15 in 1997 and 98; in 2001 its rank fell further to 11th out of 15.
(Figure 1)
According to another research on Hong Kong newspapers' reliability (Figure 2), Oriental Daily ranked sixth amongst 10, with an average mark of 5.76.
Rank Newspaper Average mark (public) Average mark (journalists)
As information technology outbursted in recent years, Oriental Daily, like other local newspapers, also launched its own website. It provides readers free access to full version, up-to-date news. However, it only covers news of the day but not past issues.
Readers can, too, send e-mails instead of posting letters to editors. An electronic message board is out there to record their discussions.
Orisun.com is the flagship website of the Oriental Press Group Limited. It was started on 8th February 2002 and includes e-paper versions of Oriental Daily and Sun Daily. The whole printed version is uploaded onto the web allowing people from all over the world to read. This helps promote online newspaper viewing. However, one point to note is that readers have to register and pay to subscribe to the e-papers. This is 'personal information as commodity', as readers need to provide personal information.
Online newspaper viewing is really becoming a trend and is gradually replacing the traditional reading habit. However, it does help to keep locals abroad informed of what is happening in their home town.
Apple Daily, established in 1995, is Oriental Daily's main competitor. They declared a price war against each other in December 1995. Apple Daily reduced its price to $ 4. To retain its market share, Oriental Daily responded by reducing the price of newspaper to $ 2. During and after this war, 6 newspapers closed down due to persistent losses. Oriental Daily and Apple Daily survived and have driven out other competitors such as Hong Kong Daily News, Sing Pao Daily News and Tin Tin News. Since then, Oriental daily struggled hard to improve its publishing quality, e.g. by putting in attractive, colorful photos & illustrations.
Other methods to improve service quality includes opening customers' service centres. Readers can report their complaints by visiting these centres in Tsim Sha Tsui and Wan Chai. Inside the centre, complaints can be lodged face-to-face to reporters via digital video conversation system. The service centers opens everyday and it undoubtedly fasciliates the handling of complaints from readers.
Recently, Oriental Press Group Limited would like to extend its business to America and Canada. Cities like New York and Toronto which have high population of chinese will be its first target.
Oriental daily also contirbutes to the society by setting up the Oriental Daily Foundation in the 1980s. The foundation aims at offering financial asistance to those who urgently need help. The paper's great numbers of readers-doners promises a stable source of funding for the foundation which has successfully helped thousands of people in the past 20 years. During the SARS crisis, the fund helped several children who have lost both of their parents to maintain basic needs and continue education.
In 2002, the fund raised exceeded eleven million dollars. The cumulative amount collected since 1980 even exceeded three hundred fifty million dollars. One can imagine how such amount has helped the needies. Besides the funding, the newspaper also set up scholarships to encourage students develop themselves. In terms of contribution to the society, the newspaper has indeed done a great job.
See also:
Content
Style and Credibility
1 Ming Pao 7.54 7.27
2 SCMP 7.24 7.47
3 Sing Tao D. 7.13 6.78
4 Sing Pao 6.48 5.89
5 Wen Wei Po 5.93 5.92
6 Oriental D. 5.76 5.14
7 Ta Kung Pao 5.64 5.44
8 Apple Daily 5.15 5.08
9 Sun Daily 5.13 4.45
(Figure 2)Internet service
Competition and New development
Contribution to the society
External links