PRESS, BROADCASTING AND CINEMA
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circulation of more than 60,000. These overall circulation figures represent a sale of newspapers at the rate of 25 for every hundred of population. This compares with an International Press Institute figure of 40 for every hundred people in Japan but only one for every hundred throughout Asia as a whole and excluding China.
The pattern now is of two big newspapers, one morning and one afternoon, with circulations well above 100,000 a day each. Another two or three papers between 50,000 and 100,000 and a large group of perhaps ten newspapers with circulations in the thirty thousands. The rest of the 46 come below that figure and it proves possible for newspapers to survive with circulations as low as 3,000 copies a day.
Generally regarded as the Colony's leading Chinese newspapers are the Wah Kiu Yat Po (Overseas Chinese Daily News), Sing Tao (Island Star), and Kung Sheung (Industrial and Commercial). The first two of these charge 20 cents a copy, all other Chinese papers in Hong Kong sell for a mere 10 cents which makes news a rea- sonably priced commodity by any standards.
Of these newspapers the Wah Kiu Yat Po is the oldest having been published since June 1925 with Kung Sheung commencing one month later in the same year. Sing Tao dates from 1938. All of them are antedated by earlier newspapers not now in circulation. One of these began publication in 1873 and a version of it only ceased a short while ago. At least one other Chinese newspaper was being published before that date.
Newspapers like these are exceedingly comprehensive and even those aiming for the most popular taste carry a great deal of foreign news for which they rely on the international news agencies. The larger papers regularly run to 24 or 28 pages a day.
Hong Kong also supports three English-language newspapers. The South China Morning Post and its afternoon companion the China Mail, and the Hong Kong Tiger Standard published by the same group as the Sing Tao newspapers. Both dailies publish Sunday editions. Publication of a new 'tabloid' evening paper, The Star, has been announced for March 1965.
Both Chinese and English-language newspapers are represented on the Newspaper Society of Hong Kong which manages, despite their diversity, to represent the common interests of its members.