Shanghai Eye reports on the demise of an expatriate oriented magazine published in Shanghai:
Rumour has it Shanghai’s NVR magazine, a rip off of The Week, is no more. Most nodding dogs agree, this was likely to happen.
Owner That’s Shanghai is looking pretty ropey too, and now comes with a “RMB 18″ price sticker. Hmm, and SH magazine is going out too, recent rumour has it staff have been thrown out the windows at an alarming rate, even for a free English language Chinese city magazine.
So that leaves City Weekend, joyfully rubbing their hands, counting their pennies and shooting anything that looks like content. Or maybe the old dame of Shanghai’s English language city mags, Shanghai Talk, maybe the only one left. This is like watching the world’s oil suppliers fall to the whims of happenstance. Or is it all an evil plot??
Two thoughts:
1. The idea of doing a news magazine that aspires to be “the only news source you’ll ever need” (despite being published in China in partnership with a State-owned entity) is quite ridiculous. English-reading expatriates get quite enough of anodyne nonsense passing for journalism in the China Daily etc.
2. Perhaps your correspondent is biased, since he was the founding editor of the two publications mentioned below, but the English language media in Beijing is simply much better than in Shanghai. That’s Beijing, which is operated by a different company than the Shanghai version, is fat, full of ads, and often contains good and informative writing and regular humor columns by people who actually know how to write, like Kaiser Kuo. They also publish a growing range of books.
Beijing also has Le – TimeOut Beijing which has pushed the envelope of expat rag content with columns on gay and lesbian issues, some great cartoons and good writing about urban life in Beijing.
Le – TimeOut was recently sold to SEEC, the Chinese media company that produces Caijing magazine. According to TimeOut editor in Chief Tom Pattinson, the entire editorial team is staying together and they are looking forward to a year of expansion with their new, powerful and well-funded owners. So how about a website fellas?