With the world heading into recession, advertising experts believe newspapers could be one of the worst-hit sectors. But that does not seem to apply to China's biggest city newspaper.
“In the crisis, the strong will get even stronger,” says Liang Qinjian, head of the newspaper committee at the China Advertising Association. “The city newspapers that have successfully transformed into commercially oriented businesses and are still increasing their readership will be on the winning side. This is true for Guangzhou Daily in particular.”
There are several factors behind this bullish assessment. First, despite a quite sharp slowdown in Chinese economic growth, no one expects the country to stagnate or even move into recession. As a result, overall advertising spending has held up so far and is set to continue to increase next year.